PONTIFICIA UNIVERSIDAD CATÓLICA DE CHILE

Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Estudios Urbanos

PONTIFICIA UNIVERSIDAD CATÓLICA DE CHILE

Facultad de Arquitectura Diseño y Estudios Urbanos

El Control como Función
El edificio torre como un sistema tecnológico y la crisis del tipo
en la segunda posguerra, 1943-1959
InGonzalo
the Name of thePurull
Rodrigo Carrasco User
Social Housing and the Project of Architectural Heterogeneity
Tesis presentada a la Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Estudios Urbanos de la Ponticia Universidad Católica de
Julián
Chile para optar al grado académico Varas
de Doctor en Arquitectura y Estudios Urbanos

Profesor Guía: Pedro Alonso Zuñiga

Comité de Tesis: Alejandro Crispiani Enríquez
Patricio del Real
Khaled Saleh Pascha
Doctorado en Arquitectura y Estudios Urbanos

Santiago de Chile | Agosto de 2015

Profesor Guía: Rodrigo Pérez de Arce Antoncich

© 2015. Gonzalo Carrasco Purull
Comisión: Fernando Pérez Oyarzún y Alejandro Crispiani

Santiago de Chile | Octubre de 2016

Table of contents

Abstract 9

Acknowledgments 11

Introduction 17

Part I - Beyond Autonomy and Heteronomy

1. Figures of Individuality in Postwar Culture: Reconstructing the 39

Architectural Subject

1.1 Vicissitudes of the Subject 41

Architecture as a Contested Representation
Migrating the Subject
Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Developments
Multiplying the Subject
Early Modern Architectural Agents

1.2 Mass Housing and Architecure in the Welfare State 59

The User as Discourse
Beyond the Linearity Threshold
The Architectural Pursuit
The User as Alibi

1.3 From the Health of Man to the Life of the Collective 74

Looking back at the Vanguard
Bio-medical and Socio-medical Approaches to Man
Reverberations in mid-century CIAM
Instrumentalizaing the User

2. The Quest for Heterogeneity: Towards a Molecular Conception of 87

the Collective (1945-1960)

2.1 Heterogeneity as a Modern Concept 89

A Conceptual Bridge
The Functions of Difference

2.2 Steps Towards a Socio-Plastics 94

Computational Modulation
Kit-of-parts Generative Systems
Spatial and Social Syntax
Dressed in Camouflage

2.3 Materialization of Commonalities in the 1950’s 111

Dispersed Networks and Local Communities
Heterogeneity as Composition
Systematizing Tendencies
Master-plan versus Dissociative Design

2.4 Heterogeneity and the Fragment 128

Fumihiko Maki and the Multiplicity Framework
Jane Jacobs and the Complexity Framework
Part II – Mapping the User

3. Subject and Process. Emerging Theoretical Foundations of Form 141

in the Postwar Architectural Debate

3.1 Disciplinary In-betweeness 142

3.2 Exteriority: Towards a Radical Heteronomy 146
3.3 Disembodied Subject 148
3.4 Developments in Computational Synthesis 149
3.5 Interiority: Conceptual 152
3.6 Interiority: Historical 155
3.7 Solving the Dilemma 156
3.8 Architecture, Collective Systems, and Communication 158

4. Erskinean Isomorphisms (1969-1982) 167

4.1 Recalling Byker 173

Preparatory Actions
Innovations in Management Practices
Strategy of Slowness
4.2 Stalemate of Criticism 187
4.3 A Retroactive Tabula Rasa 190
4.4 Continuity and Disjunction 192
4.5 Post-fordist Differentiations 195
4.6 Units of Measurement 200
4.7 Plot Unveiled 214
4.8 Byker’s Unconscious 215

Conclusion: Mapping the Event 219

Toward the Event 221
Four Theses on the Evolution of the Map 224
Comparative Synthesis 228
In the Name of (x) 232

Bibliography 238

Introduction (Spanish translation) 261

Annex I: A Projective Analysis

Fields of Propensity 285
Generative Mapping 289
Overlapping of Reverse Isovist Volumes 293
Three-dimensional Graded Zoning 298

Annex II: Byker Fact Sheet and Dwelling Count 303

Annex III: Graphic Survey of Dunn Terrace 311

Structural Systems 312
Cirulation Systems 320
Dwelling Typologies 326
Enveloping Systems 354

Annex IV: Record of Academic Grade 367

Acta de Calificación
Certificado de Grado
Abstract

Between the end of the Second World War and the beginning of the 1980s, the
unfolding of the last chapter in the history of modern architecture frames the
events documented in this thesis. A particular conjunction between the interests
of architecture and those of the State, and the unprecedented material
production that derived from such convergence characterizes a period known by
various labels: Les Trente Glorieuses in France, Keynesianism as the common
economic denominator in the North Atlantic, Developmentalism in Latin
America, the Cold War as a global economic, military, and geopolitical
phenomenon, or simply, the Postwar. Following the destruction wrought by
WWII, the efforts conducted by European nations for their reconstruction since
1945 and the economic boom that began in the 1950s were the main drivers of
the extraordinary architectural legacy of this period. However, it is not the
monuments, public buildings, or private houses which emblematize the
singularity of the postwar period, but the state enterprises designed to transform
European, American, and other regions globally through the provision of
accessible housing for new urban communities. This investigation deals with the
canonical undertakings of state-led collective housing projects built during that
period, and examines their significance within the disciplinary context of
architecture.

Its hypothesis is that for approximately two decades after 1960, the architectural
discipline conjoined an agenda of formal heterogeneity that already had at least
15 years of maturation, with a growing realization that attention had to be paid
to the new figure of the user. Rendered as an active configuration of the human
person, the user departed previous conceptions of the subject of architecture,
which was now understood in its irreducible complexity and ambiguity. In this
pursuit, the mechanistic and behaviorist conceptions that had been operating in
the field of architecture, urbanism and culture since the beginning of the 20th
century were challenged in the name of values of social and urban individuation.

The thesis constitutes a reflection on the emergence, definition and vicissitudes

of the figure of the user in its various guises, in relation to the practice of
architecture within the purview of the production of housing. It traces the
different phases through which this relationship evolved, and suggests that while
the idea of user is the tip of the historical iceberg of humanism, it also concealed
agendas of a less altruistic nature. During the postwar period, the discursive
construction of the user had precise functions in the consolidation of the
architectural discipline. After the crisis of modernism, these functions were vital
in wading successfully through the troubled decades of 1960 and 1970, during
which a wide range of critics, activists and historians actively denounced
architecture’s responsibility in the main urban conflicts of the time, and
predicted its demise and subsequent replacement by allegedly more democratic
means of management of socio-spatial problems.

Throughout this period the notion of the user had varied and even conflicting
applications: it was invoked to support open, democratic and indeterminist
projects such as those of Yona Friedman, Nicholas Negroponte or Cedric Price,
but it was also deployed as a productive instrument for determining intricate
organizations, as was the case with the work of Giancarlo de Carlo and Ralph
Erskine. If the second postwar period can be seen as a time of redefinition of
multiple values and reconfiguration of our representations of the human being
in the hands of cybernetics, philosophy, social sciences, literature, film, and the
arts in general, the 1960s and 1970s stand as the moment in which these
developments impact architecture, forcing it to pursue novel forms of socio-
cultural relevance.

The thesis constructs its narrative by weaving together discourses and projects
ranging from Le Corbusier’s Unité d’ Habitation in Marseille, to Team 10’s
manifestos, via the early approaches to heterogeneity conceived by Jane Jacobs
and Fumihiko Maki, the process-oriented reconstructions of architectural
subjectivity of the early 1960’s, through to the explicit implementation of user-
involvement strategies deployed by Ralph Erskine in his Byker project, finished
prematurely in 1982.

The research shows that in a context of suspicion toward the role of the architect
–often regarded as a despot, a technocrat, or a puppet- the project of
heterogeneity found an apt vehicle for its realization by turning the user into its
Trojan Horse. Despite the radicalisms that promoted a withdrawal from direct
involvement in establishing the formal configuration of buildings, the thesis
unpacks strategies that strove to piggyback the ambitions of architecture on the
shoulders of social development, and thus contributed to the survival of the
discipline.
Abstract

Entre el fin de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y comienzos de la década de 1980 tuvo

lugar lo que, sin dudas, fue el último capítulo en la historia de la arquitectura
moderna. Una particular conjunción entre los intereses de la arquitectura y los
del estado y un volumen de producción material sin precedentes, derivado de
esa convergencia, caracterizaron un período que ha llevado distintos rótulos:
los Treinta Gloriosos en Francia, el Keynesianismo como común denominador
económico en el noratlántico, el Desarrollismo en América Latina, la Guerra
Fría como fenómeno económico, militar y geopolítico global, o simple y
abarcativamente, la Posguerra.

Como consecuencia de la destrucción que sembró la Segunda Guerra Mundial,

de los esfuerzos que emprendieron las distintas naciones para la reconstrucción
a partir de 1945, y del boom económico que comenzó en la década de 1950,
el legado arquitectónico de este período es enorme y diverso. Sin embargo,
no son los monumentos, edificios públicos, palacios, o viviendas privadas, los
que emblematizan la singularidad de la Posguerra, sino los emprendimientos
estatales pensados para transformar las sociedades europeas, americanas, y
de otras regiones mediante la provisión de viviendas accesibles para nuevas
comunidades urbanas. Muchos de estos emprendimientos tuvieron un
carácter verdaderamente épico, y algunos, además, fueron capaces de articular
icónicamente un programa de reinserción social de la arquitectura. Este trabajo
trata sobre los emprendimientos canónicos de ese período y su contexto
disciplinar.

Su hipótesis es que, a partir de 1960 y durante aproximadamente dos décadas, la

disciplina arquitectónica hizo converger una agenda de heterogeneidad formal
que ya tenía al menos 15 años de maduración, con demandas socio-culturales
y socio-políticas para que se prestara atención a la nueva figura del usuario,
entendido como una configuración activa del sujeto humano, de carácter
irreductiblemente complejo y convenientemente ambiguo, que desafiaba las
concepciones mecanicistas y conductistas que venían operando en el campo
de la arquitectura, el urbanismo y la cultura en general desde comienzos del
siglo 20. Paradójicamente, las mejores versiones de estos esfuerzos lograron, en
nombre de los valores de la individuación social, material y urbana, construir
nuevas y monumentales máquinas de sociabilidad.

Reflexionando sobre la emergencia, definición y vicisitudes de la figura del

usuario en relación con la práctica de la arquitectura en el contexto de la
producción de la vivienda, la tesis rastrea los orígenes y las distintas fases a través
de las cuales fue evolucionando esa relación y sugiere que la idea de usuario es en
realidad la punta de un iceberg de significación cuyo extremo opuesto se hunde
literalmente hasta los orígenes de la arquitectura como disciplina autónoma
en occidente. Durante la posguerra el usuario tuvo funciones precisas en la
consolidación y supervivencia de la disciplina arquitectónica luego de la crisis
del modernismo, funciones que le sirvieron de soporte vital para atravesar las
difíciles décadas de 1960 y 1970 durante las cuales un amplio arco de críticos,
activistas e historiadores denunció activamente la responsabilidad de la
arquitectura en los principales conflictos urbanísticos de la época, y auguró su
ocaso, o en el mejor de los casos, su remplazo por dispositivos presuntamente
más democráticos de administración de los problemas socio-espaciales.
Durante este período el usuario tuvo aplicaciones variadas y hasta opuestas:
fue invocado como herramienta para apoyar la legitimación y producción
de proyectos abiertos, democráticos e indeterministas como los de Yona
Friedman, Nicholas Negroponte o Cedric Price, pero también se lo desplegó
como instrumento útil para sobre-determinar la forma arquitectónica. Tal fue
el caso de Giancarlo de Carlo, y aún más, de Ralph Erskine.

Si la segunda posguerra se puede visualizar como un período de redefinición

de múltiples valores y de reconfiguración de nuestras representaciones de
lo humano en manos de la cibernética, la filosofía, las ciencias humanas y
sociales, la literatura, el cine y las artes plásticas en general, las décadas de
1960 y 1970 se erigen como el momento en que estos desarrollos impactan en
la arquitectura obligándola a conducirse hacia un lugar de mayor relevancia
socio-cultural. Para algunos arquitectos la complejidad y sofisticación formal,
fue un objetivo que en un contexto de sospecha hacia su rol, al que se concebía
crecientemente como déspota, tecnócrata o marioneta, no hubiera sido
posible sin la intermediación de un conjunto preciso de operaciones técnicas y
discursivas. A través de la lectura cercana de dos proyectos que se ubican en los
extremos del arco temporal estudiado, la investigación demuestra cómo esas
operaciones en torno al usuario fueron una herramienta fundamental para la
supervivencia de la disciplina y para la continuidad de su aporte al proceso de
organización espacial de la sociedad occidental tardo-moderna.
 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

Acknowledgments

Pursuing doctoral studies may seem like a natural path for someone interested
in an academic career, yet my enrolment in the PhD program at FADEU in
March 2010 felt definitively more like a new adventure than a logical next step
in my professional life. It was the impetus of a sudden realization about Chile’s
thriving architectural scene I had at the end of 2009, and a gut decision to seize
a unique opportunity what enticed me initially to relocate to Santiago.

Since the very first stages of this undertaking I was fortunate to count with
the support of Professor Rodrigo Pérez de Arce. Rodrigo has not just been
the dissertation’s adivsor, aside from a mentor and friend; he was one of the
reasons I decided to try my hand at a PhD in Santiago in the first place. I had
met Rodrigo at Cornell University in 2005 and decided to seek his support
when applying for admission at the Doctoral program at the UC. During the
length of my stay at the program, Rodrigo was a sharp, confidence-inspiring
interlocutor, aware and respectful of my capabilities and limitations. His direct
acquaintance with the 1970’s and 1980’s British architecture scene and his later
investigations in the architecture of collective habitation were instrumental in
orienting my approach to the issue of housing in general, to the work of Team
10, and to those of Aldo Van Eyck and The Smithsons in particular. It was a
pleasure both personally and intellectually to have him as my advisor and I am
thankful to him for his support.

In ways not always known to him, the exchanges with Fernando Perez Oyarzún
were also greatly valuable for my personal growth, as well as for the development
of the research. A fundamental part of the intellectual capital that has been
accruing at the Doctoral program at FADEU, from which I drew much energy,
results from the climate of freedom, as well as from the cultural, disciplinary,
and ideological diversity, that are undoubtedly his brainchild as its founding
director and alma mater. Fernando’s equanimity and broad culture were
inspirational throughout the course of my studies and have enriched my work
in various ways. I also benefited much from the input of Professor Alejandro
Crispiani. Alejandro’s insights, covering a spectrum between philosophy,
architecture theory, history, and architectural praxis were both encouraging and
challenging at various stages of the process and served to overcome hesitations
and uncertainties along the way. Of course, all the shortcomings of the thesis
are my sole responsibility.

I was also fortunate to have Wren Strabucchi as a professor and informal

consultant while at FADEU. Wren provided useful criticism on texts that would
later become part of the dissertation. He encouraged me to apply for a teaching
position at FADEU and provided the necessary references, as a result of which
I was able to teach the elective course Sociotectónicas at FADEU during
the academic years 2012 and 2013. Romy Hecht was also supportive of this
initiative as the Coordinator of Undergraduate Studies, helping to make my
teaching experience possible and fruitful.

11
 I am grateful to Elemental Chile, the do-tank founded by Alejandro Aravena for
providing the funding that made the dissertation possible. As the first grantee
of the fellowship I felt honored and privileged, but also challenged by the high
stakes of the endeavor. Besides taking care of my material needs, the Elemental
fellowship gave me the opportunity to have some illuminating conversations
with Alejandro himself, to listen to his commentary and to better grasp his
concerns on social housing and urbanism in contemporary Chile. Although
the dissertation does not address those issues directly, it provides a historical
and theoretical framework in which to situate and better understand them.
Hopefully, it will also offer clues to expand them.

I would like to acknowledge the positive influence for the work that came from
conversations I had with colleagues and friends who offered their views on
different sections, passages, chapters, or simply ideas present in the research: Paul
Andersen, Andre Bideau, Marina Lathouri, David Salomon, Graciela Silvestri,
and Deane Simpson. Miles Glendinning, my host during a visit to Edinburgh
University, generously granted access to a wide array of research materials on
modern housing in Great Britain. Roger Tillotson, former collaborator of Ralph
Erskine and leader of his Newcastle-based Byker Team, gave me a thorough tour
of the estate in January 2012, as well as a copy of what was probably the most
comprehensive index of bibliographical references on the project.

Being the product of a mid-career effort, the thesis inevitably condenses ideas I
absorbed and accumulated in previous academic and professional incarnations.
My interest in the relationship between subjectivity and architecture crystallized
in many collaborations undertaken with Cary Siress, begining in the spring of
2003. These collaborations broadened my view of desire an the irrational as
forces guiding the formative processes of architecture. Professor Christophe
Girot offered me a window through which to enter the ETH, and Professor Marc
Angélil provided the framework for a greatly formative experience as a young
faculty member in Zürich, where I was exposed to the tradition of formalism
in modern architecture theory. In the early 2000’s, Alejandro Zaera Polo
was an employer and mentor who instilled an interest in complexity that has
never left me. Mohsen Mostafavi offered me the oportunity to develop many of
these interests at Cornell University. Along the last fifteen years I have learnt
copiously from Ciro Najle -former teacher and current employer-, who taught
me, amongst other lessons, how not to be postmodern. The dissertation is in
certain ways a dialog with people I have barely met, but whose ideas reached
me in ways provocative, illuminating, and inspiring: Manuel Delanda, Peter
Eisenman, Michael Hays, Christopher Hight, Jeffrey Kipnis, Rem Koolhaas,
Sanford Kwinter, Greg Lynn, Patrik Schumacher.

My studies at the doctoral program at FADEU UC were greatly enriched by the

exchanges with my fellow “doctorandos”. The interdisciplinary nature of the
program provided an opportunity to mingle with people from radically different
backgrounds. Conversations and feedback I received from Gonzalo Carrasco,
Antoine Casgrain, Carolina Hermosilla, Elvira Pérez, Alvaro Román and Andres
Téllez were particularly edifying. Andrea Masuero, coordinator of the program,
made sustained efforts to help an outsider navigate the complex institutional
framework of the university. I wish to thank Jacqueline Bigorra, assistant to
the director of the program, for going out of her way to offer her support to my
frequently mundane yet sometimes outlandish necessities.

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 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

Furthermore, I wish to acknowledge the help I received from Lorena Quintana

and Molly Chiang in the production of the analytical drawings of Byker. Thanks
to their patience and rigor it was possible to assemble a precise digital model
of the project without which the close-reading exercise of Chapter 4, and the
diagrams included in Annex 1, would have been sterile. Likewise, I want to
thank to Marcelo Sarovic (Constructo), Fernando Diez (Summa +), Claudia
Shmidt and Luis Muller (UTDT), for providing feedback and publishing early
versions of Chapters 2 and 3 in Santiago and Buenos Aires.

I find it hard to imagine that I would have been able to undergo a long and
sometimes extenuating process -which involved living in a city that seemed
foreign, and about which I knew very little- had it not been thanks to the great
privilege of having a mother and a father both willing and able to deliver their
support and material help. To an immeasurable degree, the pleasures of living
in Santiago and studying at FADEU are directly related to the companionship
of Lorena Quintana, my partner-in-life, and often in work. If she had not been a
central part of this story, the challenges would have been far less appealing and
the experience less felicitous. For her endurance of countless busy weekends,
evenings, and holidays, especially during the later stages of the dissertation, I
remain forever indebted. To her go my deepest gratitude and appreciation.

13
INTRODUCTION
16
 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

“It occurred to me that this might be the bed used by the resident of the house,
whose monstrous anatomy was revealed obliquely by this object in much the way
the anatomy of an animal, or a god, may be known by the shadow it casts… I also
recall a V of mirrors that faded into shadows above. What must the inhabitant of
this house be like? What must it be seeking here, on this planet, which must have
been no less horrible to it, than it to us?”

Jorge Luis Borges, 19751

Autopsy
In “There are more things” (1975) the late Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges tells
the story of a house and the inexplicable circumstances surrounding its renovation.
Located on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, the building has been recently vacated and
is being thoroughly refurbished. Concealed from view and shrouded in mystery, a
new interior design is entrusted to a carpenter after the original architect, horrified
by the commission, refuses the job. At the end, the design of the new furnishings
and interiors is exposed in their utter monstrosity as being unsuitable for human
habitation, suggesting their use by a creature of unimaginable anatomy and
uncertain provenance. In the passage above, the figure of the shadow captures
the nature of the relation between the alien body and the objects that extend its
material existence. Its poetic force metaphorizes the transfer of information from a
three dimensional body that cannot be accessed directly to a bi-dimensional figure,
suggesting the possibility that an observer might be able infer the features of the
former. The image of the shadow throws us squarely into the field of architectural
projection, for in constructing a non‑metaphoric relation between an object and
its representation, it draws a close relationship with notions germane to recent
architecture theory: the trace, the map, and the index. But it is not only through
its poetic exploitation of the relationship between form and its representation that
the story of an alien being that dwells in the periphery of Buenos Aires sets the
tone to begin a reflection on architecture. It is through the introduction of the idea
of the monstrous that Borges’s story goes beyond the mere reference to issues of
architectural projection, for in suggesting the possibility of such malformations, it
implicitly brings the entire edifice of architectural humanism to the table and lays it
open, as if the scene was being set for a sophisticated dissection or autopsy: that of
architecture’s own body. While the relationship between the body of architecture’s
subject and its material environment remains the key to deciphering the horrifying
reality of the story, it is human values and forms which are suddenly moved off the
center. Architecture is recast, if only for an instant, as a domain greater than what
can be grasped by imagination.

The story unfolds in the context of Borges’s interest in popular culture and of his
flirtation with science fiction in particular. More broadly, however, it partakes
in a wave of interest in the notion of a non-divine “other” capable of dislocating
humanity from its privileged place at the center of purposeful agency and order, as
reflected in pop cultural productions of the 1950’s and 1960’s -such as Hollywood’s
sci-fi film boom- and in the emerging discourses of cybernetics and structuralism
that began to blossom in the period following World War II.

1.   Jorge Luis Borges, “There are more things”, in The Book of Sand (Allen Lane, The Penguin Press:
1998) Translation by Andrew Hurley. Originally published as El Libro de Arena (Buenos Aires:
Emecé, 1975).

17
 Diagnosis
It is precisely in the context of the postwar crisis of modern representations
of the human that the present investigation sets its point of departure. The
postwar years mark the beginning of a period in which the crisis of man was
broached simultaneously by the philosophies of Ernst Cassirer (1945), Hanna
Arendt (1958), Roland Barthes (1957) or Michel Foucault (1966), by vernacular
and pop cultural expressions such as the boom of science-fiction in film,
and by the rise of the new sciences of cybernetics, systems, and complexity.
Architecture was by no means foreign to these developments, which hit it with
full force. Many figures and processes attest to the challenges posed to it by the
new subjective configurations of the postwar decades. On the one hand are to be
mentioned the shifts in the discourse of its hegemonic mouthpiece, the Congrès
Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM), which took a swift turn from
abstract issues of efficiency and hygiene to a quasi-romantic imagination of
the city and its dwellers. Attuned to those transformations lay the evolution
of their own ideologues’ thinking, namely those of Sigfried Giedion, who took
note of the de-humanizing consequences of modernity in Mechanization Takes
Command (1948), and of Le Corbusier, whose interest in deriving a new idea of
universal harmony from the proportions of the human body kept him busy from
1943 until the publication of Le Modulor II in 1955. On the other is the open
attempt to redirect modern architecture toward a status of greater complexity
and sensitivity, either on the basis of an anthropologically informed humanism,
or on that of a sociologically inflected interest in notions of community,
individuality, and heterogeneity; this was essentially the task undertaken by
the architects that formed Team 10 in the mid 1950’s. Thirdly, the upsurge of
novel forms of scientific knowledge such as urban sociology, social psychology,
and even more specialized fields such as proxemics and housing sociology,
constituted a further cognitive basis to buttress the overall ideological drift
towards a new representation of human subjectivity.

The hypothesis put forward by the dissertation is that, around 1960, architecture
was able to conjoin its already well-defined agenda of formal heterogeneity with
growing socio-cultural and socio-political demands to give attention to the user:
a new figure of the human subject that defied previously established definitions
and classifications operating within the architectural and urbanistic domains.
Neither conceivable exclusively as an individual, nor as a collective –that is,
conveniently capable of being interpreted as either-, the user entered into the
discourse of architecture to demonstrate that the earlier constructions of the
subject could no longer be taken for granted; it announced the need to check
universally established notions of the human person against newly available
conceptual formations and empirical knowledge. Specifically, the user prompted
the necessity for a recognition of the uniqueness of the cultural and political
conditions of the developed postwar world: an environment that moved toward
increasingly networked societies, composed of ever greater numbers of middle-
class, educated consumers who would no longer lend themselves to being herded
by technocratic leadership without posing active resistance or mounting robust
opposition –as was demonstrated during the events of 1968.

During modernity, the tension between the figures of individuality and

collectivity had constituted a key force in the construction of our self-
representations as human beings. Since its secularization and increasingly since

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 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

the 19th century, architecture had had a critical role in shaping those figures.
The thesis states that the concept of the user, in its ability to summon both the
emergent individualism of the prototypical postwar urbanite and the notion
of a divergent and diversified collective, became a lever by means of which the
discipline of architecture was able to re-orient itself through images, techniques,
and organizations that allowed it to break out of the intellectual straitjacket
imposed on it by instrumental modernity, overcoming the crisis that beset it and
threatened its demise at the end of the 1960’s.

But even if the discourse of the user, in its ambiguous yet far-reaching
implications, can be said to have impregnated the territory of architecture as a
whole, it was within the field of collective social housing where it became possible
–and necessary- to radically investigate its potentials. Virtually no attempt was
made by architects from the 1950’s onwards that did not, in one way or another,
take into consideration the various developments that had come to shape this
new, “anonymous client”, in Aldo Van Eyck’s famous words, of welfare-state
architecture. The investigation on the role played by the user in architecture is
thus sited in the context of the discursive and material polemics concerning the
design of social housing.

The lead hypothesis of the research is woven out of a number of elements and
historical narratives that are readily accessible to the historian of 20th century
architecture. Yet the particular mode by which those elements have been
articulated is original and –one hopes- capable of furnishing greater definition
to a picture of architecture’s contribution to social development that is still
blurry and, in many ways, poorly understood. To that end, the thesis brings
together hitherto divorced historical narratives and strands of theory –including
elements from formalism, phenomenology and cybernetics- setting them into a
complementary and mutally reinforcing relationship. To open up this history of
20th century architecture to a renewed examination, then, means to challenge
some of the views put forward by its protagonists and direct observers, whether
these be architects, commentators, critics, or historians, in order to overcome the
partisanships that tainted their perception of events they were closely involved
with. An illuminating vision of the history of architecture and collective social
housing should be able to overcome sterile conceptual oppositions. Operating
well within the 21st century, our task should consist in recasting the terms under
which we understand the work of the architects and institutions that bequeathed
us some of the most ambitious buildings ever erected. Such operation requires
an integrative analysis in which functional complementarities replace structural
oppositions: humanism and the phenomenal tradition versus techno-science
and the analytical; participation against the shadow of expert knowledge and
state bureaucracy; formalism against the spontaneity of vernacular disorder.
Seen under this light, the history of postwar social housing might be framed
no longer in terms of its supposed failures, but as a fruitful and often hugely
successful experience.

Events
The dissertation relies on a structural chronology of postwar architecture in
which an intellectual watershed is identified between the late 1950’s and the

19
 early 1960’s. While it is common among late 20th century periodizations to mark
the period 1968‑1973 as a turning point for modernity, the early years of the
decade of 1960 saw a series of significant discursive and ideological disruptions
in architecture. Accordingly, the thesis is organized in two sections of two
chapters each. The first one deals with events that took place approximately
during the period between 1945 and 1959, and the second one extends between
the early 1960’s and the early 1970’s. Each phase is further characterized
by the study of an emblematic building of the period: Le Corbusier’s Unité
d’habitation –began during the early days of the reconstruction in France
and finished in 1952-, and Ralph Erskine’s Byker Wall –a project initiated in
1969 and finished, after several delays, at the beginning of the 1980’s. In this
scheme, the first phase can be characterized as a period of transition in which
the main frame of reference, even if under heavy suspicion, continued to be the
orthodoxy of interwar modernism. The movements toward the humanization of
the environment, the appropriation of the human sciences and even Brutalism
are essentially continuous with many of the tenets of CIAM ideology, especially
its softened postwar versions. The second phase, on the contrary, appears to be
pointing resolutely toward the upcoming, irreversible crisis of modernism. As
documented in the thesis, the emergence of the discourse of the user as a new,
active figure through which to recast the subject of modern architecture is a
clear sign that the early 1960’s constitute this watershed moment in the history
of architecture.

The first phase, then, should be defined around the experience of the 1950’s. For
even if the war itself ended in 1945 its effects lingered in Europe and worldwide
for a number of years in the form of geopolitical instability, but also as rationing,
scarcity, and a generally impoverished condition in many countries. Well into the
1950’s the effects of the Korean War (1950-1953) impinged on the industrial and
economic conditions in European nations, imposing limitations the delayed what
could have been a faster recovery. As recounted by Tony Judt, Britain’s situation
was among the most difficult, with “a bonfire of controls” being celebrated in
1949, but with food rationing actually lasting until 1954. During this period, the
architectural scene saw the decline of CIAM and its urban ideology, and attempts
by a group of younger architects, initially to revive it, and ultimately to develop a
different form of association ‑looser, more informal, less bureaucratic- meant to
breathe new life into modern architecture. Furthermore, the second half of the
1950’s were years of accelerated construction of social housing throughout Europe.
However, the social consequences and implications of this process were not yet
ripe for architecture’s latent agenda of heterogeneity to become fully embedded.
Even if the quest for heterogeneity took momentum as a preoccupation of the
early postwar period, its adoption as a fully conscious program of action would
require another decade of disciplinary and cultural maturation. Le Corbusier’s
project for the Unité d’habitation in Marseille, in conjunction with his studies
for The Modulor, stand out in this context as a precocious investigation into
the relationship between the notions of heterogeneity and that of the embodied
subject -it is too early at this point to speak about the user.

The second phase comprises the period between the early 1960’s and the early
1970’s. This temporal bracket is conceptually heterogeneous in that the early
date belongs primarily within the dynamic of architectural and housing cultures,
whereas the early 1970’s are a generally agreed upon date in which progressive

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politics and welfare-state-fuelled economic growth began to show signs of

crumbling. During this phase, an empirical assessment of modern housing
architecture became possible on the basis of the realizations of the previous years.
An emerging wave of criticism, namely through the work of Jane Jacobs, Herbert
Gans, John Habraken, Martin Pawley, or Nicholas Taylor -but also through
Henri Lefebvre and the Situationists- was not only more radical and visceral
than anything that had transpired in the 1950’s, but also began to outline the
basis of what would become, toward the end of the decade, the discourse of post-
modernism. This second part of the dissertation is concerned with developments
in the field of architecture that took place starting between 1961 and 1963.
One of the salient developments of this period is the growth of new academic
traditions seeking to work out theoretical doctrines capable of replacing the worn
out framework of functionalism. Despite their divergences, these investigations
were characterized by a greater distance to interwar modernism and hence by
a lesser commitment to its values. On the other hand, the early 1960’s saw the
explicit introduction of the notion of the user into the architectural discourse.
As the perception of the “failure of housing” became increasingly widespread,
finger‑pointing at architects and planners needed to be supported with a counter-
concept that could embody simultaneously that which had been repressed, and
that where potential was contained for a new type of social reformism. Byker
Wall, the project chosen for a detailed analysis in the second section, is relevant to
this context because of its designers’ perceptive appropriation of the momentum
garnered by this figure of the subject, and their cunning inversion of the terms in
which the problem had been set.2

Reconstruction
Throughout its development the dissertation proceeds by allowing the affirmative
case of hypotheses and conjectures to give direction to the research. This may
be contrasted to other sorts of discursive organization that are more forcefully
mobilized by interrogations. Even if this distinction may boil down to a matter
of style, I have felt that the affirmative case was accurate in reflecting the state
of existing knowledge at the beginning of the research and in exposing that
there was not a great deal of ingenuity in the construction of the subject matter.
In that sense, the research was advanced by assuming a general validity of its
initial hypotheses and evolved by challenging, refining, qualifying, specifying and
generating proof for them.

A defining characteristic of the research is that it attempts to establish links

between discursive and materials artifacts, rather than focusing primarily on
either of them. Therefore the investigation consisted, on one hand, in combing
through publications in order to look for discursive evidence capable of testing
its conjectures. On the other, it required the analysis of paradigmatic projects
through the production of measured drawings and conceptual diagrams, as well
as through the observation of historical drawings and photographs extracted
from publications and archives.

2.   Byker poses a challenge to periodization, not just because the design and construction process
extended over almost fourteen years, but because it fused together theoretical impulses that
originated in the 1950’s with preoccupations that emerged along the 1960’s and 1970’s.

21
 To carry out the discourse analysis the investigation had to rely fundamentally
on architectural publications such as books and journals, most of them from
Europe and the United States. This was not just a pragmatic choice but is
justified by the fact that the object of the dissertation belongs in a network of
people, institutions, buildings and concepts, that was made possible largely
due to the expansion of communication systems within the discipline. Being
perhaps the privileged system of communication within architecture in the
period of study, the printed matter is therefore more than just a means to access
historical facts, it constitutes in itself an enabling fact of the subject matter at
hand. Having established this, the ensuing effort consisted in constructing
logical and historical connections between three groups of printed materials:
a) manifestos, statements, theoretical works and historical accounts of post
WWII architecture in Europe, b) book and journal articles dealing specifically
with the chosen buildings, including statements by their authors, as well as
critics and historians, and, c) published manifestos and critical assessments on
contemporary architectural theory.3 Following is a brief commentary on each of
these types of materials.

a) These publications were necessary to distill general context parameters on

which a certain consensus has emerged about the structural lines of historical
development of 20th century architecture. Periodizations, landmark buildings,
definitions of the canon, and stylistic classifications were appropriated for
further analysis and fine-tuning. Some key issues, such as the selection of the
case studies or the characterization of the roles played by some of the practices
portrayed had to be subjected to thorough fact-checking. For example, the
accounts of the history of Team 10 have assigned a peripheral role to architects
such as Giancarlo De Carlo and Ralph Erskine, and while this may be “true” if
measured by the weight of their contributions to the discursive legacy of the
group (which, let us be reminded, is known to have been carefully edited by its
main chronicler, Alison Smithson), the significance of their contribution to the
overall discourse on modern housing becomes clear, when four decades later,
Robin Hood Gardens is slated for demolition, while Byker achieves protected
status (and funding) as English Heritage. In short, even if some of the grand
narratives of 20th century architecture have been utilized in a fairly instrumental
fashion, they had to undergo triangulation, and, in some cases, revision, in view
of the specific problems posed by the thesis.

b) Texts dealing with the production and critical reception of the chosen case-
studies. It may be surprising to discover that despite the abundant bibliography
that exists about such paradigmatic buildings as Le Corbusier’s Unité d’habitation
and Erskine’s Byker Wall, these have seldom been analyzed with any critical

3.   In historical studies a differentiation is often made between primary and secondary sources.
The former are those that bear a direct relation to the events under investigation -i.e.: are
contemporaneous with them or otherwise unmediated-, while the latter are defined as those that
build upon direct accounts of events. However, under certain conditions this classification of sources
may become irrelevant. For example: if the events being addressed are contemporaneous with their
narration. Another difficulty arises if, moreover, the subject of the research cannot be accounted
for by direct observation, but relies instead, on interpretive inferences and/or generalizing efforts.
Because the present work meets those conditions, the sources have been classified according not
their reliability or relationship with the source, but to the type of evidence they furnish the overall
argument.

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agenda in mind that was not determined by their immediate historical context.
The most notorious bibliography in this sense consists in studies conducted by
social scientists and specialists on housing (Chombart de Lauwe’s studies of the
early days of the Unité and its tenants, and Peter Malpass’s political critique of
Byker stand out). However, properly architectural analyses have rarely been
undertaken from the point of view that is of interest for the present thesis. Very
often the studies on both buildings have been concerned with the historical
conditions and events that lead to their coming into being, as narrated either by
their authors or by critics closely involved with them. Predictably, this has led
to most existing chronicles being overly conditioned by a kind of partisanship
that is no longer relevant for contemporary architectural polemics. On the
contrary, for example, although exchanges between figures such as Alexander
and Erskine are known to have taken place (their joint presence at Team 10
meetings is well documented), the unfolding of a dialog between their positions
has never been attempted. In this sense, the bibliography on the case studies
provided not only specific information about their intentions, conditions, and
critical reception, but also clues as to unexplored avenues of interpretation.

c) Texts about the contemporary state of affairs in architecture, especially

those that have become stable references for discussions on issues germane
to housing: typology, expression, collective organization, and affect -i.e.: the
relationship with the subject. However elusive, this is the realm of information
that provides the point of entry into the thesis, as well as the justification to
undertake its historical and conceptual excavation. The materials surveyed here
can be further classified into two groups: those dealing with the zeitgeist of
architecture, and those focused on housing, social architecture, and the role of
the user.4 The former served to furnish evidence and to qualify the argument
about the relevance of the project of heterogeneity and other pursuits of
architecture in its dimension as an autonomous discipline; the latter provided
situational coordinates necessary to assess the inflections and articulations
between global discourses and practices specified by their geographic, cultural,
programatic and historical contexts.5

This threefold classification of the sources of the dissertation was fashioned

according to the specific demands posed by the investigation. In practice,
knowledge is a continuous web of discourses that interconnect either explicitly,
by means of citations, or implicitly, through their appeal to, or usage of similar

4.  Although the notion of the zeitgeist may be taken to imply a simplistic a view of the field, it
remains useful to address the topography of knowledge and values that are shaped by the prevailing
theoretical and stylistic trends, in the context of an increasingly networked discipline.

5.   A specific methodological challenge is given by the fact that the thesis is conceived as an
excavation of the origins of a contemporary problem within architecture; in that sense it cannot
acknowledge a discontinuity between “then” and “now”. Thus, lack of perspective and direct
immersion in the problem are unavoidable difficulties. Not that historical discourse is devoid of these
issues in general, but the distance between the authors and their objects of study is often bridged by
sedimented methods through which the work may be channeled. On the contrary, the construction
of a ground on which to organize the constituent facts of the present investigation must acknowledge
the influence of the author’s biases. Yet, those biases are not merely personal; they are the expression
of a generational mindset in which the belongs author. In methodological terms, this implies coming
to terms with a degree of capriciousness in the configuration and structuring of the thesis, so long
as the work goes on to construct a rationale that elucidates and justifies the reasons of such a priori
configuration.

23
 concepts, events, structures, or contexts. The evidence of the thesis was
constructed by tracing lines of continuity within and among the three domains.
Most of these continuities were created rather straightforwardly by following
lines of references and citations; others by using concepts and contexts as
bridges where no direct linkages could be found.

Complementing the discourse analysis, the diagramming and reconstruction of

the two most relevant case studies was also a key source of the dissertation. In
the case of the Unité, the detailed, dated drawings depicting various stages of
project’s development -accessed through the digital version of the Le Corbusier
Archive-, were instrumental to hypothesize the rationale of certain aspects of
the design process. Although the inferences made on the basis of the drawings
are supported by published statements by the authors, some claims do remain
conjectural as it has not been possible to find testimonies that can confirm
them. Byker’s archives, on the contrary, are yet to be classified, lack consistent
dating, and are difficult to access; a thorough reconstruction of its design
process is thus an archeological endeavor that lies beyond the possibilities
of the present work. Despite these limitations, a general impression of the
design process as well as some considerable fact-checking were possible by
consulting the material available at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
A detailed reconstruction of its geometry was feasible on that basis (see Annex
1). The drawings produced contain more information than anything that has
been published so far. In conjunction with publications, historical photos and
visits to the building (documented with notes and original photographs), the
information gathered from archives enabled the formulation of hypotheses on
the forces that needed to be called upon to explain the building.6 In this sense, it
is an integral part of the work and cannot be separated from its content.

This investigation could have resorted to a third type of material in addition to

texts and buildings, namely, graphic documentation where people have been
the object of representation themselves, such as sketches and renderings of
buildings, but also scientific representations and technical drawings. In both
cases there exists a host of primary materials that could have been mined to enrich
the picture of the human subject as was conceptualized in architecture. The case
of technical representations has been the focus of a number of recent studies
and exhibitions, and is the subject of some consideration in the first chapter of
the dissertation. Nonetheless, the choice to focus primarily on buildings in their
materiality and organization instead of looking at their representations (which
are regarded as instrumental) remains justifiable inasmuch as buildings and
their performance are our primary objects of concern.

Graphic Techniques: Indexical reading + Performance simulation

The chapter on Byker and Annex 1 rely critically on re-drawing, diagramming,
and graphic experimentation. As mentioned above, these tools are fundamental
to the construction of the arguments of the thesis, yet, in what precise way do
they contribute to the research? It is traditionally accepted that architectural
knowledge can not be acquired without sketching, projection, and modelization,

6.   However, some assumptions could not be checked and remain as possibilities rather than facts.
As an example: there are no published records stating that the structure in Byker was clad with
colored brick purely out of architectural reasons, or if, on the other hand, financial or practical
determinations played a crucial role on this decision.

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as aids to discipline direct observation, but these are not quite the graphic
systems that unfold here. There is an interest in the construction of a visual
language in buildings, specifically through the formal definition of their
enveloping surfaces, as this is the most direct way in which they convey their
various messages. But the deployment of graphical analysis in the thesis picks
up methods that have been appropriated by architecture from other disciplines,
namely, history and linguistics, on one hand, and engineering on another. They
are used to furnish complementary types of information on the building.

The first method is indexical reading. It begins with a survey and reconstruction
of the building, and is structured around three interrelated notions: the idea
of close-reading, the indexical (or “evidential”) paradigm, and that of the
genetic. The goal of indexical reading is to reverse the causal chain that led
to a given material configuration in order to identify the events and forces
that gave it its form. Seeking to settle disputes around artworks of contested
authorship and to advance the techniques of interpretation, close-reading has
been utilized in literary criticism and in historical research. Carlo Ginzburg is
noteworthy for having applied these notions in the construction of a historical
method fundamentally attentive to details deemed irrelevant by orthodox
historical traditions.7 Influenced by the linguistic investigations of Noam
Chomsky, the semiology of Charles Sanders Peirce, and the work of Jacques
Derrida, it was Peter Eisenman who most consistently brought these methods
into architecture. Eisenman’s focus on the syntactic dimension of architectural
organization as a privileged site of inscription (see Chapter 3) is symptomatic
of an attempt to escape both readings and “writings” of architecture concerned
primarily with figuration -in other words, to escape foregone conclusions based
on traditions of semantic interpretation. Moreover, the reconstruction of Byker
introduces what could be called a projective dimension of graphical analysis.
Inasmuch as there is no evidence that a genetic understanding of the project
stood consciously behind the design decisions at Byker, the attempt to read its
formal heterogeneity in terms of a process of celular differentiation is assumed
as a novel conceptualization. Here, architectural “facts” are extrapolated into
“propensities”: a virtual dimension of building.

Developing the idea of the virtual, the second method of graphical investigation
used in the thesis (see Annex 1) is based on performance simulation. It
purports not to uncover inscribed intentions or past events, but to actualize
a building’s performative potential. In contexts such as weather forecasting,
military strategy, and industrial and military engineering, in which functional
performance has to be maximized, margins of error and safety coefficients be
tightly controlled, and overall system predictability assured, simulation has
been an irreplaceable design tool for at least 70 years. Given the complexity of
the processes involved in those fields, even the most careful planning efforts
can be insufficient to insure that a system’s behavior remains within desired
boundaries. Although physical simulation had long permeated architecture
and engineering -such as in high-rise wind tunnel testing- until the broad
dissemination of digital computation in the 1980’s and early 1990’s even a basic
simulation of performance used to require the deployment of technologies that
were beyond the reach of most civilian and commercial applications. During

7.     See his: “Clues: Roots of an Evidential Paradigm”, in Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method
(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989). Originally published in 1986.

25
 the 1990’s digital computation took a leap that enabled an increasing number
of users to apply those techniques within their design environments.8 But their
impulse to utilize them did not stem anymore from an interest in increasing
the efficiency of building performance. Above all, simulation became a tool
to explore formal ecosystems of unprecedented geometric complexity. If the
possibility to design in a simulated dynamic context gave rise, in its inception,
to a new genealogy of variably curved surface buildings, perfomance simulation
has recently expanded its potentials by incorporating a broader gammut of
issues, including user behavior, energy, water, and air management, noise
control, sunlight incidence and heat gain prediction, structural behavior, etc.
In this context, the diagrams included in Annex 1 seek to visually actualize
social behaviors that are enabled by the building, but which have not yet been
recognized or measured.9 This effort is based on the assumption that novel
architectural forms require original preconditions to come into existence. The
expectation is that these simulations might build up potential for such future
interventions in Byker and beyond.

The Case for Heterogeneity

The arguments of the thesis began to take shape in 2011. Their point of
departure was an intuition about the renewed relevance of the relationship
between the concepts of heterogeneity and differentiation, and social agendas
in architecture. During the course of the research, this intuition was confirmed
by the discovery of numerous declarations dealing specifically with it, many
of which were published as the thesis was being written; furthermore, it was
possible to track its historical emergence in architecture to the debates on the
design of collective organizations (housing and urban complexes) that were
prompted by the post-WWII reconstruction efforts.

Although the concern for devising a new form of cohesive organization of the
collective -one that would not repress the expression of its individual elements-
became widespread after the military and political excesses of the first half of
the 20th century, it was Dutch architect Aldo van Eyck who gave this search its
most articulate form:

“What has right-size is at the same time both large and small,
few and many, near and far, simple and complex, open and
closed, will furthermore always be both part and whole and
embrace both unity and diversity. No, as conflicting polarities
of false alternatives, these abstract antonyms all carry the
same evil: loss of identity and its attribute, monotony.”10

“Planning on whatever scale should provide a framework -to set

the stage as it were- for the twin phenomenon of the individual
and the collective without resorting to arbitrary accentuation

8.     The canonical reference is: Greg Lynn, Animate Form (New York: Princeton Architectural Press,
1998).

9.     I do not claim to have based my work directly upon theirs, but I wish to acknowldge that the
analytical diagrams of Byker are related in certain ways to the spatial research methods developed by
Bill Hillier’s Space Syntax Laboratory. See Annex 1.

10.   See: Alison Smithson (ed.), Team 10 Primer 1953-1962, London 1965 (reprint of the special
issues of Architectural Design 1962 and 1964): 5.

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 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

of either one at the expense of the other, i.e. without warping

the meaning of either, since no basic twinphenomenon can be
split into incompatible polarities without the halves forfeiting
whatever they stand for. This points towards the necessity
of reconciling the idea of unity with the idea of diversity in
architectural terms or, more precisely, to achieve the one by
means of the other. It’s an old forgotten truth that diversity is
only attainable through unity, unity only attainable through
diversity. There are of course many ways of approaching this
objective. The architectural reciprocity, unity-diversity and
part-whole (closely linked twinphenomenon) must cover the
human reciprocity individual-collective.”11

Van Eyck’s words are surprisingly relevant again, as societies throughout the
western hemisphere confront the need to redefine their self-representations
in the context of migratory movements, the challenge of multiculturalism, and
demands for social integration. The architectural discipline has gone on to
internalize these conditions, developing renewed theoretical tools. In an essay
published in 1999, North American architecture theorist Robert Somol affirmed
that “the history of architectural production over the last forty years can broadly
be characterized as the desire to establish an architecture at once autonomous
and heterogeneous in contrast to the anonymous and homogenous building
associated with the interwar rhetoric and postwar experience of the modern
movement. This quest for autonomy and heterogeneity -with its fundamental
antinomy in the call for both identity and multiplicity- has taken several forms
in this period, one of which is a continual misreading or repetition of the
modernist avant-gardes.”12 Likewise, the transformation of design processes
and sensibilities effected by the explosion of the digital medium brought about
a renewed interest in the idea of space itself as the locus of heterogeneity. In
that sense, recent investigations have focused on the shift from an abstract
Cartesian space –that is, a homogenous space that was the basis of the theory
of perspective and hence of Renaissance architectural form- to a differentiated
space of effects, much more akin to the energetic models that had been proposed
by Reyner Banham, and that were later theorized by Stan Allen and Sanford
Kwinter. This has received detailed attention in a reader published in 2009.13
Moreover, a recent article by art historian Branko Mitrović on the problem of
the homogeneity of space in the work of Leon Battista Alberti sparked a series
of academic exercises conducted by Peter Eiseman at Yale University (2013)
under the title Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Space: an evolution, 1450-
1750.14 The relationship between digital modes of production and heterogeneity
in architecture has also been explored by Lars Spuybroek and Mario Carpo in
their recent books, The Architecture of Variation (2009) and The Alphabet and

11.   Aldo van Eyck, in: Alison Smithson (ed.), Team 10 Primer 1953-1962, Architectural Design
12/1962: 600-604.

12.   See: “Dummy Text, or the Diagrammatic Basis of Contemporary Architecture”. Italics in the
original. Published in Peter Eisenman, Diagram Diaries (New York: Universe Publishing, 1999).

13.   See: Michael Hensel, Christopher Hight and Achim Menges (eds.), Space Reader: Heterogeneous
Space in Architecture (Chicehster: Wiley, 2009).

14.   See: Branko Mitrović, “Leon Battista Alberti and the Homogeneity of Space”, Journal of the
Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 63, No. 4 (Dec., 2004): 424-439.

27
 the Algorithm (2011). In the latter, Carpo goes so far as to put forward the idea
that digital modes of production have liberated the potential for a nonstandard
design practice that can overturn “technical, economic, social, and visual
principles that have characterized the mechanical age for most of the last five
centuries”.15

But the issue is far from being an exclusively academic concern. While the
references quoted above might suggest that the problem of heterogeneity in
architecture is no more than a scholarly matter, experiences in the field of social
housing during the last decade prove that the dilemmas posed sixty years ago
by Van Eyck cannot be settled once and for all. Addressing the experimental
housing projects built in Chile by Elemental, Alejandro Aravena gave this
problem a clear formulation in an interview in 2010: “uniformity had until
now an openly negative connotation, the issue of monotony or the incapacity
to express individuality-, [yet] it was the equivalent of the school uniform in
that it reveals less the unsightly inequalities among neighbors: it has a positive
equalizing dimension that was not evident to us when we began the [Quinta
Monroy, at Iquique] project. It is not a closed debate. We still do not know
when the opening of the process of intervention and individual expression
onto public space is a virtue or when uniformity is [more] valuable for not
revealing who is more capable than others, letting normal differentiation
processes occur inside the dwelling, in the forms of use, in the distribution
of spaces, but not in how I project myself as being more capable than my
neighbor.”16

The Instrument17
Architects always conduct their business on behalf of others –this holds true
even when they design for themselves, as there is no such thing as an entirely
individual self that claim autonomy from the collective.18 However, the nature

15.     Mario Carpo, The Alphabet and the Algorithm (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011): 105. The
italics are mine.

16.   See: Entrevista a Alejandro Aravena II, por Felipe De Ferrari M. y Diego Grass P. December,
2010. www.onarchitecture.com Translation and italics by author.

17.   In this dissertation the user is defined as he, she or they, who establish a habitual experiential
relationship with a building or space in which they live, work, or conduct regular business. This
definition deliberately excludes those who ‘use’ the building in non-experiential or indirect manners,
such as making a living from of it (design, construction, maintenance or administration), or those
who enjoy (or suffer) its presence as part of an urban landscape. In practice, the meaning of the term
tends to be even more constrained as it often focuses on users that are disempowered or left with
little choice in deciding if or how to undergo the experience of a building.

18.  “The term ‘collective’ should be understood in the sense of a multiplicity that deploys itself as
much beyond the individual, on the side of the socius, as before the person, on the side of preverbal
intensities, indicating a logic of affects, rather than a logic of delimited sets”. See: Félix Guattari,
“On the Production of Subjectivity”, in Chaosmosis. An ethico-aesthetic paradigm (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1995): 9.

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of those others and the actions of design that are to be conducted on their
behalf have remained contentious. As mentioned above, the introduction of the
concept of the user into architectural discourse took place in the early 1960’s
as an effort to bring into the dynamic of public-interest design a figure that
differed from the anonymous worker, but also from the traditional client or
patron. But as the utopian thrust that had mobilized those democratizing efforts
waned towards the late 1970’s, the practices associated with user advocacy,
participation, and user-centered research became an increasingly isolated
niche, almost a specialization. What is more, the progressive veneer that had
distinguished those practices was partially lost as they were appropriated by
right-wing populism, as was notably the case in Britain. During nearly two
decades, the idea of use in architectural praxis survived either as a covert
interest, or as a peripheral concern without much impact on the mainstream
debates of the discipline. Since the early 2000’s, this situation began to
turn. The publication of the volume Use Matters: an alternative history of
architecture (2013) is a clear marker of a revitalized interest in the issue of
the user (it features essays by seventeen different authors), although now the
partisanships that had animated the earlier discussions have been softened in
favor of more dispassionate, post-utopian approaches to the subject.19 As Kenny
Cupers warns us in the introduction to the book, the contemporary scenario of
use-inspired research and practice should not be read in terms of an old “agenda
that undermines architecture’s autonomy or its formal potentials … [but as]
how use has been a critical motor of architectural invention.” In fact, continues
Cupers, “from the resurgence of activism and social engagement in architecture
to the development of new spaces of interaction using the latest technologies,
the interest in the agency of the user across many creative disciplines today
delivers new promises for the social role of design”.20

Cupers’ admonition resonates with the Latin American context, where activist
and politically motivated forms of practice have flourished at the same time
as (or after) a series of institutional frameworks and apparatuses have been
put in place to favor the proliferation of such practices. While this does not
impinge necessarily on the merits of those practices, it should serve to
differentiate them from earlier oppositional stances that operated in the
abscence of such frameworks, and that may perhaps be credited for their
ultimate institutionalization. It seems as if, today, the alignment of the forces
of use with those belonging to traditional forms of architectural practice would
be a necessary condition, not to fulfill a program of political emancipation, but
rather, merely, to get things done. It is probably in this framework that the
work of Elemental Chile should be inserted as a leading case.21

19.   See: Kenny Cupers (ed.), Use Matters: an alternative history of architecture (New York:
Routledge, 2013). The list of publications that are reinvigorating the polemic on use continues to
grow. See also: Stephen Grabow and Kent Spreckelmeyer, The Architecture of Use. Aesthetic and
Function in Architectural Design (New York: Routledge, 2015).

20.   Ibid, 1.

21.   Indeed, this is what is most difficult to address discursively, not just for Elemental but for any
practice working under intense public scrutiny. For if the alignment of the institutional and design
forces, and the forces of usage were once seen as a political contradiction, today the battle appears to
be unfolding on a cultural and economic, rather than political level. In any case, this does not mean
that in such battles the architect is not playing his or her cards to push (consciously or not) not just
“on-behalf” of a given “other” but also “to impose” his or her conception of that “other”. But this does

29
 Although less specific in terms of its investigation of the issue of use in the sense
discussed above, a further example of the revitalized interest in topics of housing
and the construction of its subject in Latin America is the recent publication of
Jorge Francisco Liernur and Anahí Ballent’s book La Casa y la Multitud (2014).
This extensive historization of the evolution of housing practices, policies,
and theories in Argentina during the 20th century is of relevance here because
its points primarily to the political dimension of the subject of housing. By
employing the notion of the multitude in its title, the book reveals its inclination
towards a post-fordist understanding of the collective that is in line with the
turn identified in Chapter 4 of the dissertation. Its publication bears witness to
the continued social relevance of housing as a project than cannot be separated
from a given conception of the political.22

The Framework: Architecture and Behavior

In order to account for the actions that architecture has conducted on behalf
of its users, its relationship with human behavior has been identified as the
theoretical site of the dissertation. Choosing this problem as the lens through
which to study the issue of housing design stems from the recognition that
the architects involved in it gave primordial importance to the social and
psychological effects that housing had on its inhabitants, and, that they
considered these effects as a legitimate yardstick by which to measure the
success of their work. It is important, nonetheless, to keep in mind that this
interest in a specific aspect of the agency of buildings -their capacity to shape
users by affecting their behavior- does not imply a withdrawal from the focus on
projective practice. While a sociological approach to the subject matter would
privilege the focus on the reality of buildings, the methodology proposed here
seeks to isolate buildings from the network of interactions that occur after they
initiate their life as social structures. Rather, the focus shall remain at the level
of prediction, intentionality, and of the decision-making processes where social
interactions are present in a virtual way.

In what follows, the theoretical site of the dissertation is diagrammed as a thick

layer of interrelated theories and opinions that have collectively shaped their
own development since the middle of the 20th century. As this landscape is
probed, its contested nature is soon revealed by the fact that several disciplines
claim it as their own. Theories of the human subject lie at the base of sociology,
psychology, anthropology, political science, as well as certain branches of
philosophy, geography and economics, and, of course, architecture. But, as
architecture in itself is not a science, it has historically necessitated borrowing
principles and definitions from the former. The result of those associations has
been a fruitful historical experience for architecture, if measured by the number
of investigations, or by the sheer diversity that it injected into the discipline.
Yet, at the same time, the liaison with the human sciences has constituted one
of its most difficult traumas. For it has implied a confrontation of institutional
and cognitive forces in which architecture often gave the impression that it was

not seem to be a conversation that can be had in public. The idea of the excuse will be brought up in
the conclusions to explain this aporia.

22.   The book does not make explicit its association with the terminology of Paolo Virno or of Michael
Hard and Antonio Negri, but its indebtedness to those authors was confirmed by J. F. Liernur in an
email to the author dated January 14th, 2015.

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 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

about to lose its footing. Given this panorama, the thesis does not claim to have
constructed a fully consistent, independent position, but merely to put together
a picture of the various intellectual forces that have influenced its writing,
establishing historical and conceptual connections among them. It will be
seen that such ideas are only partially synchronous with those of the historical
materials under scrutiny. But the diachronism and plurality of this approach
is warranted, precisely, by the need to extract those materials from their
immediate historical context; the challenge consists, after all, in understanding
how they can be useful to elucidate the issues that are pressing in contemporary
architectural practice.

There exist several compendiums and overviews that might contribute to

drawing a historical outline of the relation of architecture and behavior; an
account of the early ones would have to include Robert Gutman’s People and
Buildings (1972), and Geoffrey Broadbent’s Design in Architecture (1973); a
somewhat more recent historical survey is the essay “Architecture Invents New
People” by professor Russell Ellis.23 The macro-field of Environmental Design
(ED) should be credited for generating a consistent body of work on the subject.
Pioneered by William Wurster at the University of Berkeley in California in the
1950’s, Environmental Design became a breeding ground for numerous lines
of research, including that of the Center for Environmental Structure, founded
by Christopher Alexander in 1967, and Henry Sanoff’s Environmental Design
Research Association, founded in 1968 and settled later at the University of North
Carolina.24 ED focused initially on the application of methods and knowledge
originated in the human sciences, and went on to develop a significant amount
of research on the issue, considering architecture as one of its subfields, in
conjuntion with urban planning, landscape design and interior design. A useful
overview coming from the field of ED is Jon Lang’s Creating Architectural
Theory. The Role of the Behavioral Sciences in Enviromental Design (1987).
Lang’s book ranks as one of the most comprehensive analytical reviews of the
legacy of modern architecture in its relationship to the subject, subsequently
attempting a critical synthesis of the theory and empirical knowledge developed
in the human sciences in relation to the physical environment through the
1960’s and 1970’s. It argues against the generalizations, homogenizations, and
idealizations of modern design, and criticizes its positivistic and possibilistic
undercurrents. Instead, it introduces symbolic and probabilistic approaches
as the most reliable frameworks for understanding the nature of the relations
between man and its environment. Notwithstanding its breadth, Lang’s
perspective displays shortcomings that stem from ED’s scientifist position
concerning the nature of design professions, which tend to lead to de-
politicized and de-aestheticized conceptions of practice. While forwarding the
relevance of the subject, the tendency of ED is simultaneously to eschew the
actual articulation of objective empirical analysis with its necessary subjetive
dimensions, which are confined to the status of “studied object”, but only lightly
thematized in the constitution of the act of studying. It is for this reason that a
mapping of the theoretical field of the dissertation is to be amplified by looking

23.  In Russell Ellis and Dana Cuff (eds.) Architect’s People (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).

24.  See: An Architektur, “On Consensus, Equality, Experts, and Good Design. An interview with
Roberta Feldman and Henry Sanoff”, in An Architektur. Produktion und Gebrauch gebauter
Umwelt No. 21 (9/2008): 4-15.

31
 at the contributions made by architects directly concerned with the politics of
mainstream and avantgarde practice. Even if sometimes those contributions
are formulated in a less systematic manner, they furnish a view of the internal
dynamics of practice without which it is not possible model the dynamics of
architecture.

These notes are premised on the notion that architectural design has always
involved some degree or form or purposive action, even in its less utilitarian
incarnations. As a consequence, it has regularly needed to rely on axioms or
presuppositions about causal relations that might enhance its possibilities of
success in achieving said purposes, even if they could amount to something as
vague as “to produce delight”. In fact, those axioms and presuppositions have
constituted the central problem of architecture theory since the Renaissance,
and delight itself has been the least contested pursuit of the discipline, inasmuch
as it does not overlap with the responsibilities of other professions, such as
science (utility) or engineering (solidity).

With the rise of modern functionalism, however, it seemed for a number of

decades that utility had to be elevated to the topmost position within the
scale of architecture’s concerns. Never mind the distant origins of utilitarian
philosophies and their relationship to aesthetics, which are known to have
existed for centuries; the discourse of function acquired mythical status
within the modernist avant-garde, especially among the radical movements
that developed in Germany and Switzerland, but also in some of the tenets of
its humanist expressions, including the work of Le Corbusier. Influenced by
19th century positivism, functionalism and the neue sachlichtkeit relied on a
deterministic theory of the subject that conflated social change and architectural
form in linear fashion. Despite his multi-faceted, slippery persona, at the height
of his heroic period, Le Corbusier could affirm, in Vers une Architecture, that
architecture was so powerful as to prevent a revolution. During this period,
which extends roughly between 1920 and 1960, behaviorism was the most
prominently underlying psychological theory of the human subject embraced,
consciously or not, by the dominant branch of modern architecture.25 It involved
an organismic conception of man as determined by its environment, from
where ergonomic, anthropometric and topological architectural principles were
derived. Even if behaviorism, in its strong form, has been superseded by more
sophisticated theories, it is important to mention it here, not just to furnish
a context to the more recent developments, but because, as will be shown, it
still has some significant ascendancy on the contemporary state of affairs in
architecture.

Accompanied by the dramatic development of humanist positions in emerging

disciplines such as anthropology and social psychology, behaviorism would fall
into disrepute after the 1950’s. Both the practical experience accumulated in the
decade that followed the war, and the corresponding advances in sociology and
social psychology made it clear that subjects and collectives were endowed with
an internal complexity that allowed them to develop diverging representations
of external stimuli, and hence to become unpredictable in the context of
a given situation. Some of the most significant texts of the post-war period,

25.  But it was not the only one. In the 1940’s, for example, Colin Rowe had already brought ideas of
gestalt psychology and empathy theory into architecture from the field of art history.

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including those by Sigfried Giedion, the younger Reyner Bahnam, or Team

10’s own programmatic declarations, from Aldo Van Eyck’s Statement Against
Rationalism (1948) to Shadrach Woods’ The Man in the Street (1975), attest
to this shift into a post-mechanistic, psycho-anthropological subject, endowed
with values, desires, and free will. A key theoretical offshoot of this conception
of the subject was the belief that architects needed to expand their sphere of
action beyond the design and construction of buildings. For if subjects and
communities could not be expected to respond linearly to the stimuli of physical
form, then, at least, some of the uncertainty about its effects could be removed
by architects if they would take on new responsibilities as social educators and
leaders, actively engaged in constructing the conditions of reception of their
work. Within Team 10, this position was exemplified most forcefully by Ralph
Erskine and Giancarlo De Carlo. Implying that form could not be entrusted
with the full responsibility for architectural performance, they underscored the
political and discursive mediation of the designer as an integral factor in the
successful engineering of socio-architectural effects (an argument especially
suited to contexts of deprivation or disempowerment). The amplified conception
of architecture held by Erskine and De Carlo has been reassessed during the last
decade, and occupies an important place in contemporary theory.

Although post-war humanism succeeded in fuelling the work of Team 10 until

the 1980’s, its influence had already begun to wane in the mid 1960’s. New
generations of architects who had started their education after the end of the
Second World War brought with them a need for disciplinary representations
that were free of the baggage of interwar modernism; this baggage included
Team 10’s humanism, which came to be regarded by many as a sugared extension
of functionalism.26 An entirely new conception of architecture and its relation to
the human subject came up with the work of Aldo Rossi and Peter Eisenman,
both enrolled, in their own ways, in structuralist thinking.27 The work of these
architects is emblematic of a radical distancing from empirical reasoning. Their
contributions posited the existence of transcendental structures that precede
and condition the subject, language in Eisenman’s case, and type, collective
memory, and the city, in Rossi. In order for architecture to exert an influence
upon its users, its focus had to shift from the experiential to the conceptual and
the critical. The structuralist subject could only be interpellated by displacing
or appealing to its representations of the world -the rest would flow from
there. Architecture was assumed to act primarily on the levels of memory and

26.  Although structuralism has been defined by many authors as essentially opposed to humanism,
certain deviations from this clear-cut distinction are noticeable, the case in point being Aldo van
Eyck’s conflation of humanistic concerns with an interest in the work of Levi-Strauss.

27.  Rossi’s adscription to structuralism was never explicit. However, as Ignasi de Solà Morales points
out, “the call for an autonomous understanding of architecture based on the body of theory intrinsic
to it -set forth in treatises and manuals- and the definition of morphological and typological data as
essential references in the analysis of works of architecture and urban design reveal the influence
[on Rossi] of structuralist thinking upon the domain of architecture. Not only do his references to
Claude Lévi-Strauss and Roman Jakobson clearly indicate the nature of the support underpinning
Rossi’s theories; his actual practice as an architect also reveals his true interests.” See: Ignasi de
Solà Morales, “From Autonomy to Untimeliness”, in Differences: Topographies of Contemporary
Architecture. Translated by Graham Thompson. Edited by Sarah Whiting. (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1997): 77-77. Published originally in Spanish in 1995.

33
 consciousness. But this retreat into a sphere of critical discourse soon proved
too restrictive in its ability to interact with specific subjects, and in its neglect of
the significance of the material conditions of practice.

Published in 1978, Rem Koolhaas’s Delirious New York can be seen as an

attempt to exit from this dead-end. Nurtured in Surrealism, Situationism,
Constructivism, and Italian vanguard movements of the late 1960’s, Koolhaas
was no stranger to the idea of a subject overdetermined by unconscious forces.
Aware of the limitations of a critical discourse disdainful of modernity, he
sought to demonstrate that, contrary to the accusations against it, modernity
had succeeded in the city of New York. This success, of course, was not quite
the one envisioned by the European avant-garde, but it was unmistakably
modern. Koolhaas posited that the early 20th century metropolitan culture had
offered modern architecture a way to accomplish its megalomaniac plans to
transform the capitalist city, on the condition that it accepted a post-utopian
state of schizophrenia. In Delirious New York, he revisits the history of
architecture in 20th century Manhattan, and claims that its successes had come
by way of disengaging means (building the capitalist city) from ends (creating
a hedonistic culture of congestion), as any explicit discursive relationship
between them would have condemned the program of Manhattanism to failure.
As in Realpolitik, the mere stating of goals would have conspired against their
realization. But if the reality of the relationship between architecture and its
behavioral effects had somehow to remain on a hidden or unconscious level,
it was also impossible to renounce entirely to it, as any architect will concede.
Thus, Koolhaas’s solution was that its reconstruction should take place in
the realm of fiction -from whence the book’s last section is titled Fictional
Conclusion. But the undeniable productivity of Koolhaas’s paranoid-critical
method (i.e.: playing games that then somehow become real), had also a
number of limitations. First, regarding its politics: if fiction is stated as such,
then, what are its limits? What happens after it ends? and, who is the author of
the fiction?; if it is not stated, then its politics can only be described as cynical
and manipulative. Second, fiction is entirely different from theory: it does not
need to be proven right. If, following Koolhaas, the discourse of architecture
can only be effective as fiction, does this mean that a theory of architecture and
behavior, in the scientific sense, is impossible? Koolhaas would answer that it
is possible, yet irrelevant in the face of its limited transformative capacities.28

During the last decade, further contributions to the problem of the relation
between architecture and behavior were advanced, placing the issues of style
and autonomous development within the context of social theory. Among
the most influential ones is Patrik Schumacher’s book The Autopoiesis of
Architecture (2011). Building on the work of Chilean biologists Francisco
Varela and Humberto Maturana, and on the functionalist theory of
German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, Schumacher asserts a definition of

28.  The answer would be that a theory of the relationship between architecture and human
behavior is possible both in principle -just as any phenomenon or process is in principle amenable
to description and modelization- and as the result of historical attempts claiming to represent it;
but that, in practice, its utility and applicability are highly dependent on local contingency and
are therefore limited in their scope and value. The proof of this would be that even a wide-ranging
account of architecture as Koolhaas’s, in a highly globalized, ecumenical culture, is valid only in the
context of specific metropolitan settings.

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 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

architecture as an autonomous discipline. However, he relies on the concept

of autopoiesis, signifying a turn from previous understandings of autonomy.
The radical autonomy that infiltrated the discourse of the Italian Neo-
rationalist movement of the 1970’s, for example, was based on oppositional,
dialectical politics. The Eisemanian autonomy of the 1960’s and 1970’s was
politically liberal, but shared with the Italian left an underlying kantianism in
its conception of subjectivity. Departing these positions, Schumacher crafts
his idea of autopoiesis on a functionalist theory rooted in the sociological
tradition of Émile Durkheim, Talcott Parsons, and Niklas Luhmann, and a
philosophy of life whose building blocks come from cybernetics and systems
thinking. In Autopoiesis, the system is neither indifferent nor reactive to its
environment. Instead, the autonomy of the system is manifested in that the
environment influences it only inasmuch as selectively allowed by its internal
“wiring”. Furthermore, this interaction can be defined as probabilistic, or
weakly behaviorist, rather than deterministic (modern), or indeterminate
(postmodern). This logic applies both to the relation between the human
subject and architecture, as its environment, and to the architecture system
as a whole, and modern society, as its environment.

A more in-depth explication of Schumacher’s conception of how architecture

influences the subject can be derived from his thesis that architecture is
one of society’s great function systems, in parallel with law, the economy,
the political system, art, education, etc. Its specific function is defined as
that of “adapting and re-ordering society via contributing to the provision
and innovating the built environment as a framing system of organized and
articulated spatial relations”.29 The establishment of order is broken down
into spatial organization and spatial articulation. While the organizing agency
of architecture can be considered “hard,” in the sense of setting a material
frame that pre-selects concrete possibilities for subjective response, the
dimension of articulation establishes a semiotic regime that compels the
subject into the arena of spatial “reading” and interpretation. This semiosis is
so decisive as to condition the spectrum of responses that the organizational
level of architectural order is able to elicit.

With regard to theory, Schumacher takes the resolute position that it is not
only possible, but of fundamental importance for the continued existence
and advancement of the discipline. Furthemore, he broaches theory as such,
arguing that it consists in an effort of self-observation; therefore, it serves as
an internal function of the system of architecture; theory is not just about how
buildings should be designed for a given performance, but about the means and
directions in which architecture should steer its own institutional development.
For instance, by regulating the selection criteria by which buildings are included
into the architectural canon, theory partakes in an economy of values that are
above and beyond the empirical level of evaluation of individual structures.

Koolhaasian cynicism and Realpolitik rationality are abandoned by Schumacher,

who reintroduces a constructivist, reflexive politic, and with it, the modern
notions of truth, function, and causality as touchstones of theoretical work.
Causality, however, is not linked, as in modernism, to a deterministic stance,

29.   See: Patrik Schumacher, The Autopoiesis of Architecture, Volume II: A New Agenda for
Architecture (London: Wiley, 2011): p. 371.

35
 because, as he goes on to argue, the primary mode of operation of architecture
is not to impose behavior but to invite subjective response. In his embrace of
probabilism, or weak determinism, he follows the conceptual approach initiated
by the mathematical methods of Lionel March and Christopher Alexander in
the 1960’s, and their development by Bill Hillier’s Space Syntax Laboratory,
which he goes on to credit for having maintained alive, through the 1980’s,
empirical and computational analysis traditions.

An important question implicitly raised by Autopoiesis is to what extent

positive theory can be compatible with practice. The simultaneous activities
of Schumacher as a theoretician/academic and a partner with a large global
practice such as Zaha Hadid Architects would seem to emphatically assert that
possibility. Yet, how are the conflicts of interest between the goals of theory
(consistency) and those of practice (performance) to be resolved? If they are
resolved by fitting the theory to the requirements of a singular practice, then
its explanatory power will be compromised. While for Koolhaas the escape
to fiction is a way to overcome this contradiction, in Schumacher there is no
acknowledgment of it. Hence the question is left open as to whether Autopoiesis
might reach its limits if architecture, as a liberal profession within a free-market
economy, is confronted with modes of practice where its boundaries are not so
clean-cut (for example, within the recently revitalized welfare state economic
models being deployed in Latin America and elsewhere, in which a significant
amount of architectural services are being engulfed by the state). This caveat
does not invalidate the theory, but points at some of its limitations.

Written by one of its protagonists, Autopoiesis -a two volume treatise in

excess of 1200 pages- is a tour-de-force text to understand the avant-garde
architectural thinking of the 1990’s and 2000’s. It returns to the idea of style as
the structuring principle of the historical evolution of architecture, and offers a
sweeping account of parametricism as early 20th century’s dominant style. Its
relevance for this dissertation lies not only in its contemporaneity, but also in
that it asserts that variation and formal heterogeneity are among the principal
means by which parametricism triggers the subjective responses of users,
clients, critics, and architects. In that sense, it proves the continued relevance
of the historical experiences explored in the thesis, and provides an updated
framework for their conceptualization.

In closing, it should be pointed out that after an impasse of about a decade

-in part generated by Koolhaas’s forceful critique of the semiotic regimes of
postmodernism-, the 21st century has seen the revitalization of communicative,
referential and semiological concerns as a privileged locus of architecture’s
agency. Despite their differences in sensibility and theoretical inclination,
Koolhaas’ turn to the discourse of figuration and shape in Content (2003),
coincides, after all, with Schumacher’s conviction that the legibility of form
needs to be recognized as a powerful way for architecture to impinge on human
consciousness. On the other hand, the recent re-awakening of the politics of
participatory practice -or, more precisely, the renewed sensibility of mainstream
architectural discourse for a set of practices that had been long confined to a
marginal niche- points to the necessity of expanding the range of architecture’s
interlocutors. For participation, as seen today by emerging designers, is
once again a technique meant to create subjects, to form them as part of a
larger architectural experiment; it is not a renunciation to the irreducibly

36
 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

confrontational, exclusionary, and even elitist, politics of architecture. It is in the

overlapping, interaction, and complementation between the effects of material
organization and those of formal articulation, but also in the consideration that
the architect cannot be innocent with regards to the immediate conditions of
reception of his or her work, that a contemporary understanding of the relation
between architecture and the human subject may continue to be outlined.

37
1. Figures of Individuality in Postwar Culture:
Reconstructing the architectural subject
40
 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

“The world is split into the diversity of what exists and the diversity of the
human subject confronting it”.
Siegfried Kracauer (1922)1

1.1 Vicissitudes of the subject

Architecture as a contested representation

Our contemporary conception of architecture is that of a field of endeavor distinct
from engineering, science, and the arts. This understanding of our discipline
has been historically constituted and can be traced back to the initial stages of
Italian modernity, where amongst the dazzling genius of all-embracing figures
such as Leonardo, the architect rose as a self-appointed specialist in command
of a new domain of technical, historical and artistic expertise. It is around the
middle of the 15th century that historiography places the markers that signal
the cultural, economic, and political turn known as the Renaissance.2 Against a
backdrop characterized by an emerging capitalism and the erosion of established
hegemonies over the body politic, the Italian Quattrocento was a test-bed for the
development of new power positions based on the knowledge of techniques of
perspectival representation and the study of the Roman architectural tradition.3
These forms of knowledge meant not only the introduction of a new spatial ob-
jectivity, but signified also an irreversible disruption in the established system
of controls within the building trade, and the formation of a discipline with its
own image: that of a self-steering, theoretically grounded praxis. Moreover, it
inaugurated a period of fruitful liaisons between the humanists, the commercial
aristocracy, and the papacy, that would set the conditions for the development of
the discipline over the ensuing centuries. With the secularization of the modern
state in the 18th century, that image of the architect was further reinforced through
the discipline’s engagement with the state. Such was the case, for example, when
in the years leading to the French Revolution public architecture became the
focus of Étienne-Louis Boullée’s treatise Architecture, Essay on Art.4 Increas-
ingly detached from the figure of the private or ecclesiastical patron, Boullée’s

1. “Die Welt spaltet sich in die Mannigfaltigkeit des Seienden und das der Mannigfaltigkeit
gegenübertretende Subjekt.” in: Soziologie als Wissenschaft (1922): 12. Reprinted in Schriften 1
(Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1971): 13. Quoted and translated by Michael Hays, see below for reference.

2.  Although by now largely superseeded, the canonical historiography of the Renaissance was
established by Jules Michelet (1855) and Jacob Burckhardt (1860). The period between the mid-
14th and late 16th centuries, however, was already conscious of its own unique outlines against the
background of medieval culture, as proven by Giorgio Vasari’s use of the term rinascita, in Lives of
the Most Excellent Italian Architects, Painters, and Sculptors from Cimabue to Our Times (1550).
See: Paula Findlen, “Possessing the Past. The Material World of the Italian Renaissance”, The
American Historical Review, Vol. 103, No. 1 (Feb., 1998), pp. 83-114.

3.  See: Leopold D. Ettlinger, “The Emergence of the Italian Architect during the Fifteenth Century”,
in Spiro Kostof (ed.), The Architect. Chapters in the History of the Profession (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1977).

4.  The Essay was written before the French Revolution but remained unpublished until 1953. See:
Helen Rosenau, Boullée and Visionary Architecture. Including Boullée’s ‘Architecture, Essay on Art’
(London: Academy Editions, 1976).

41
 theoretical work is indicative of architecture’s search for a new position within
a modern social organization in which the state no longer had a defined physi-
cal face. In its capacity to arbitrate the idea of the public in material form, the
architect’s most relevant conversation was no longer to be had with a private
patron but with the abstract figure of the free citizen, as represented by the
state. In many ways, this has continued up until our days, when even private
architectural commissions are seen to be endowed with a public dimension
stemming from their insertion in an urban context or by their mere existence
as a cultural object. This status of the architectural work has enabled –and to
some extent, demanded- the perpetuation of the image of the modern architect
as an individualistic ‘hero and genius’, as portrayed by Ayn Rand’s novel, The
Fountainhead, in the indomitable figure of Howard Roark –a character whose
features took closely after those of Frank Lloyd Wright.5 And it was Le Corbusier
who most distinctively epitomized the idealistic image of the architect as an
autonomous form-giver when he famously wrote that “by his arrangement of
forms, [the architect] realizes an order which is a pure creation of his spirit”.6

But the architect’s legitimacy and free rein as an authority in the design of public
and private buildings did not always go unchallenged. Beginning around the de-
cade of 1850, the shameful effects of the housing crisis in rapidly industrializing
countries such as England, France, Germany, and the United States, prompted
some architects to descend into unknown and unwelcome territory. Against
preexisting traditions of practice and conceptions of architecture, they accepted
the tight rules imposed on design and construction by the housing market of the
‘laboring classes’. In such capacity they generated prototypes for individual and
collective dwellings, taking significant reductions to their creative autonomy.
Their advance onto this territory also demanded the imagination of lifestyles
they could not know by experience, nor could aspire to. Various manuals were
published on the topic of worker housing, yet the issue would remain marginal
until the emergence of functionalism. During the 19th century architecture had
become an established professional field in both Europe and the United States,
implying its acceptance of rules and codes of collaboration with economic and
institutional forces. But a theory that allowed the discipline to fully exploit the
new heteronomous conditions only began to surface around the turn of the 20th
century. Its impact is represented most clearly by the work of radical modernists
such as Hannes Meyer, Ernst May, Ludwig Hilberseimer, Hans Schmidt, or André
Lurçat, who, in their own ways, shook the definition of architecture, questioning
the established relationships between the producer, the work, and its (imagined)
receiver. Since then, the shifting image of the architect -regarded alternatively
as an individualistic originator of form, as a collaborator and enabler of social
change, or as a professional mediator within broader economic processes- be-
came a sophisticated expression of the conflicts aroused by the augmentation
of the discipline’s self-entitlement in representing and influencing its subjects.

5.  For a detailed discussion of Howard Roark’s relationship with Frank Lloyd Wright, see: Andrew
Saint, The Image of the Architect (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983): 1-18.

6.  Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture (1923).

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 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

Migrating the subject

A basic tenet of this investigation is the premise that the instability of archi-
tecture’s self-representation within modern society is derived from shifts in
the conceptualization of its subject. Who ‘makes’ architecture? On whose
behalf? And, what forms of communal interaction are thereby fostered?
In what follows an attempt is made to define an overall method of inquiry
to outline some of the polemics concerning these questions. The evolution
portrayed is undeniably tied to shifting material conditions and power rela-
tions, but it is on the ways that those conditions are recast by the discipline
that observation will be focused. For even if that evolution is functionally
concerned with the production of certain type of artifacts, its conceptual
armature revolves around an ongoing interrogation that seeks to determine
the precise contours of a figure capable of mobilizing decisions involved in
the production of said artifacts. According to the anthropomorphic tradition
within architectural modernity, that figure is the human subject. 7

In order to unravel its disciplinary appropriation it will be necessary to

begin by elucidating the term “subject” -a multivalent and equivocal notion
with a great variety of applications and intellectual traditions attached to
it.8 In a nutshell, the subject seems to have functioned as a template that
allowed architecture to develop diverging conceptualizations of its human
counterpart, referring at times to the producer and at times to the receiver
of a design object: the citizen, the worker in its various guises, the family-
man, the tenant, the occupant, the user, and the consumer, among others.
But if the construction of the human as the subject of architecture has been
an outstanding preoccupation of the discipline throughout modernity, the
adoption of the specific theoretical perspective that explicitly involves the
notion of the subject is itself a more recent matter. The term had constituted
a recurrent theme in western philosophy, acquiring special significance since
Kant’s reformulation of the Cartesian cogito in Critique of Pure Reason
(1787). Its diffusion within the social sciences occurred during the early
20th century, when it became a central concept in the emerging sciences of
linguistics and sociology. Beginning in the 1950’s this framework is known
to have flourished as Structural Analysis in philosophy, literary criticism,
the humanities, and, somewhat later, also in architecture. The migration
of the subject from the humanities to architecture occurred in the context

7.  Although they will not be treated here, it is important to mention alternative traditions within the
trajectory of modern architecture. The systematizing efforts of Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand at the end
of the 18th century are one such example.

8.  Paul Smith offers a broad account of this issue where he states that “in some instances the
‘subject’ will appear to be synonymous with ‘the individual’, the ‘person’; in others -for example in
psychoanalytical discourse- it will take on a more specialized meaning, and refer to the unconsciously
structured illusion of plenitude which we usually call ‘the self´; or elsewhere, ‘the subject’ might be
understood as the specifically subjected object of social and historical forces and determinations.
Across the human sciences, the term enjoys a wide and varied usage, which is one of the tasks of this
book to investigate”. See: Paul Smith, Discerning the Subject (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1988): 27.

43
 of the latter’s adoption of semiotics in the 1960’s. This movement involved
a broad range of thinkers –including Geoffrey Broadbent, Charles Jencks,
and Juan Pablo Bonta- and found one of its earliest and most categorical
manifestations with the publication of the collective volume Meaning in
Architecture, edited by Charles Jencks and George Baird in 1969.9 But it was
in the precise conflation of semiotics and structural analysis that the subject
became an inevitable conceptual challenge. In that crossroads, the couple-
team made up of Mario Gandelsonas and Diana Agrest played a significant
role, becoming a vehicle for theoretical and cultural cross-pollination. Hav-
ing studied in Buenos Aires and later in Paris during the late 1960’s, Agrest
and Gandelsonas were some of foremost interpreters of the framework of
the subject within the field of architecture, and a key element in its impor-
tation from France into North American architectural academia. In a text
published in 1973 Mario Gandelsonas acknowledged the influence of the
linguistic turn for the social sciences and for architecture while exploring
Peter Eisenman’s appropriation of Noam Chomsky’s generative grammar.10
Gandelsonas develops this through his own transposition of the linguistic
notion of the speaking subject; however, he makes the important case that
whereas (as argued by Chomsky) spoken language relies on a hard-wired,
biological enabling mechanism, architecture is a cultural praxis that depends
fundamentally on conventions. He was to expand this argument in a further
review of Eisenman’s work published in 1979, From Structure to Subject.11
Eisenman’s evolution was explained here as a process of self-criticism oriented
toward the uprooting of a previous architectural language. The move from
Structure to Subject alluded to in the essay consists in the abandonment of
the indexical principle that could allow a retracing of the deep structure, as
was present in the earlier work, and the adoption of idiosyncratic procedures
that deny access to the rules of transformation required for that reading to
be possible. It signals the undecidability of the communicative process. The
new subject is not asked to accept the system of communication embedded
in the design, but is rather invited to project their own. Echoed in the evolu-
tion described by Gandelsonas are the difficulties into which structuralism
had run by this time –namely, the bleak perspectives of disempowerment
and alienation opened for the individual by an overpowering conception of
structure.

Architecture and the Concept of the Subject (1989), by American scholar

Johanna Drucker, can be noted a further attempt to pick up the issue, albeit
from a greater distance and with the main purpose of historicizing the process
of the adoption of the concept. Proposing a historical contextualization and
comparative reading of the subject in Eisenman and Lars Lerup, Drucker
recalls that the usage of the term subject had emerged in the context of 20 th

9.  See: Charles Jencks and George Baird (Eds.), Meaning in Architecture (London: Barrie and
Jenkins, 1969).

10.  See: Mario Gandelsonas, “Linguistics in Architecture” in Casabella (1973).

11.  See: Mario Gandelsonas, “From Structure to Subject”, in Oppositions No. 17 (1979).

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 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

century cultural production and had later permeated architecture due to

the influence that literary theory and criticism began to exert on the field
in the 1960’s. The subject, she explains, had become an operative term in
literary theory by contrast to the idea of the person; it “has its origins in
the theoretical domains that concern themselves with the operations and
functions of language. In the course of its recent shift from concern with
the text as an autonomous entity, literary criticism began to recognize the
necessity for considering the ways in which a text could construct a reader.
This reader, sometimes considered to be an ideal reader, was not so much
a person responding to the rhetorical strategies and thematic content of
the text as an actual product of the text. A distinction between the person
who might read a text, and subject produced by it was thus established.”
Therefore, while “the person is generally assumed to be an individual human
being whose existence is independent of any particular architectural form,
the subject is considered to be produced by the architecture itself in a way
that parallels the production of a subject of a literary text”. 12

One of the most cogent reworkings of the concept of the subject in an archi-
tectural context can be found in Michael Hays’s Modernism and the Posthu-
manist Subject (1992). Hays seeks to displace the view of the work of Hannes
Mayer and Ludwig Hilberseimer that had confined them to a marginal role
within functionalism. He reads their production as an early expression of the
posthumanist sensibility and disputes the reductive label “objectivity” that
they themselves had attached to their architecture, suggesting that their work
unfolds a new conception of the subject. In doing so, he emphasizes both
the tension in the subject-individual polarity (the subject being a conceptual
template, the individual, an irreducible singularity), and the double standard
entailed by the notion of the subject (as source of action and control, and
as “passive object of domination”). Hays proposes that the these tensions
can be resolved through a materialist epistemology in which the subject is
neither autonomous and transcendental, as in the idealist tradition, nor
overdetermined and politically passive, as in the positivist tradition, but
rather something that can be fashioned as a project of architectural action.
On the whole, his goal is to devise a framework for architectural thinking that
synthesizes the materialist tradition –the most poignant expression of which
he finds in the work of structuralist philosopher Louis Althusser-, with the
focus on language and signs that defines post structuralist agendas –those
of Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and Gilles Deleuze. 13

12.  In: Russell Ellis and Dana Cuff (eds.), Architects’ People (New York: Oxford University Press,
1989): 163-182.

13.  See: Michael Hays, Modernism and the Posthumanist Subject. The Architecture of Hannes
Meyer and Ludwig Hilberseimer (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1992): 6-12.

45
 Nineteenth and twentieth century developments
The introduction of the discourse of the subject into architecture is thus
emblematic of the discipline’s absorption of structuralism, and of its engage-
ment with structuralism’s linguistics and literary branches in particular.
These had served as grounds for a critique of humanist conceptions inherited
from the 18th and 19th centuries. The anthropocentric worldview instituted
in the Renaissance would dominate western thought for more than three
centuries, fashioning the human subject as a unique being equipped with
a soul, a body, and a rational mind.14 In its framework, the origins of all
action and intentionality emanated from a special kind of animal that was
somehow detached from the continuity of nature. While this conception of
the human as a rational and free agent dominated a large swath of modern
thought, alternate traditions originating in the 19 th century paved the way
for propositions that would undermine such figure. Assumed to be unprob-
lematic and trans-historical, the human had been positioned to secure a
metaphysical place for conscious agency within any ordering of the world. In
such context, the theoretical contributions of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud
effected a profound dislocation of those systems of belief.15 By casting a picture
of the human psyche as dominated by the unconscious, Freud exposed the
limitations of conscious agency in controlling language and behavior, while
disclosing the primacy of instinctual drives in the constitution of the human
subject. Its presumed soundness was challenged by the appeal to forces that
lay beyond the authority or control of the rational individual.16 Likewise, Karl
Marx’s historical materialism, with its emphasis on concepts such as “social
formation”, “social class”, “class consciousness”, and “mode of production”,
posed the preeminence of the collective over the individual, and the percola-
tion -if not determination- of infrastructural conditions through the porous
and fragile surface delimiting the space of the thinking self. 17

14.  See: Nick Mansfield, Subjectivity. Theories of Self from Freud to Haraway (St. Leonards, NSW:
Allen & Unwin, 2000). Chapter 1: The Free and Autonomous Individual.

15.  “Without a doubt, the most influential and rigorous strands of post-structuralist thought have
emerged from and been connected with the names of Marx and Freud…Marx, in attempting to turn
the Hegelian dialectic on its head and reclaiming the ontological primacy of the material world,
and Freud, in formulating the invention of the unconscious, have both fundamentally -although to
different effects- challenged traditional concepts of the ‘subject’; both have facilitated revolutionary
ways of approaching the dualism of ‘subject’ and object which to a large extent funded the entire
idealist philosophical tradition before them.” Paul Smith, Discerning the Subject: xxviii.

16.  For a study of the influence of psychoanalysis on 20th architectural views of the metropolis,
see: Cary L. Siress, The Urban Unconscious. Mediating the Psyche and the City in the Twentieth
Century. PhD dissertation. ETH n. 16415 (2005). Abstract available online at http://e-collection.
library.ethz.ch

17.  “Marx insists that ‘only the people is a concrete fact’ and will allow himself to consider
‘individuals… only in so far as they are the personifications of economic categories, embodiments of
particular class-relations and class-interests’….Thus, when Marx claims throughout his work that it
is men who make history, it is only ever the plural (and, of course, the masculine) form of the noun
which counts.” Paul Smith, Discerning the Subject: 4-5. The quotation is from Marx’s “Critique of
Hegel’s Philosophy of the State” (1843).

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 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

During the early 20th century, the consequences of Marx’s and Freud’s blow
to the autonomy of the rational subject exploded in a panoply of intellec-
tual and artistic expressions. The sociology of Georg Simmel and Siegfried
Kracauer, the philosophy of Walter Benjamin and Georg Lukács, Ferdinand
de Saussure’s theory of language, artistic vanguards such as Surrealism and
Dada, among many others, are some of their most powerful incorporations.
Indeed, it was around Saussure’s teachings in Course in General Linguistics
(1916) that the theoretical basis for a renewed questioning of the modern
subject would begin to unwind. Nevertheless, it was only toward the 1950’s
that the framework of structuralism can be said to have flourished through
Claude Levi-Strauss’s appropriation of the methods of linguistics. Display-
ing a heightened sensitivity for the repressed and a bent towards notions of
invariants and synchronic explanation (from whence its initial denunciation
of history), Levi-Strauss’s scientificist structuralism began to develop from
his acquaintance with Russian linguist Roman Jakobson in New York in the
early 1940’s, and would later have a deeply transformative effect on the social
sciences. The method of structural analysis expanded into what François
Dosse has called the semiological “branch” of structuralism. 18 Regarding
the status of an artwork, structuralist semiology held that in its production
the subject was somehow tangled within the composition or the work itself
-emerging from it, as it were. Its dominant position in literary criticism stated
that rather than existing “behind” or “prior” to the work, and hence being its
univocal “producer”, the subject could be understood as a function of the use
of language, “articulating itself through language”, in the words of Jacques
Lacan. It is through the formal features of the mode of literary composition
that the subject could be best detected and characterized; but this decoding
or interpretation would only become productive in as much as it was based
on a recomposition of the text that relied invariably on the reader’s own
universe of references, which could have little in common with those of the
writer. Thus, Roland Barthes would be able to declare the obsolescence of the
notion of the author, now deemed incapable of furnishing a relevant context
for the interpretation of a text. For Barthes, the author could no longer be the
subject of literary work, but only its “scriptor” –a mediator who physically
writes the text by weaving together multiple pre-existing fragments in an
exercise of intertextuality.19 Inducing a softer version of Althusser’s notion
of interpellation, for Barthes, the subject of the text is produced in the in-
teraction between the text in its materiality, and the reader in its historicity.
Implied in Barthes’s statement are important consequences for the activities

18.  Dosse organizes the production of structuralism in three groups: scientific structuralism,

semiological structuralism, and epistemic or historical structuralism. For a full account of its early
stages in France, see: François Dosse, History of Structuralism. Vol. 1. The Rising Sign 1945-1966.
Translated by Deborah Glassman (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997 [1991]).

19.  “The author is a modern figure, produced no doubt by our society insofar as, at the end of
the middle ages, with English Empiricism, French Rationalism and the personal faith of the
Reformation, it discovered the prestige of the individual, or, to put it more nobly, of the ‘human
person’”. See: Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author”, in Image-Music-Text (New York: Hill and
Wang, 1978) Published originally in English in 1967.

47
 of criticism and interpretation, and, inasmuch as those activities themselves
can be considered a form of literary production, also for literary composition
itself. Barthes wrote that, “once the Author is gone, the claim to ‘decipher’ a
text becomes quite useless… This conception perfectly suits criticism, which
can then take as its major task the discovery of the Author (or its hypostases:
society, history, the psyche, freedom) beneath the work: once the author
is discovered, the text is ‘explained’: the critic has conquered; hence, it is
scarcely surprising not only that, historically, the reign of the Author should
also have been that of the Critic, but that criticism (even ‘New Criticism’),
should be overthrown along with the Author. In a multiple writing, indeed,
everything is to be distinguished, but nothing deciphered”. In sum, the idea
that any formation, even the Author, can be singled out as a univocal source
of meaning must be jettisoned, says Barthes, in order that the reader may be
given its rightful place as a unifier of a text, in an ever open creative process.
The reader, says Barthes, is “someone who holds, gathered into a single field,
all the paths of which the text is constituted”. 20 The convergence between
Barthes’s recognition of the reader as the primordial force in the creative
literary process, with architectural claims of a similar agency for the user
in the production of the built environment at the end of the 1960’s, should
hardly come as a surprise.

Multiplying the subject

On reading The Death of the Author it is possible to surmise that the influ-
ence of structuralism on architecture would have come fundamentally by
way of an emphasis on the importance of reception, use, habitation, or the
unpredictable appropriation of built structures. And it is undeniable that
the motivations underlying the work of architects as diverse as Christopher
Alexander, John Habraken, John Turner, Aldo Van Eyck, Alison and Peter
Smithson, or Kisho Kurokawa, resonate within that framework. In Alexan-
der’s 1970’s texts there is a deep commitment to the ideas of timelessness
and invariance, the latter he refers to as “patterns”; in Habraken and Turner,
calls for the becoming-producer of the user; in Van Eyck’s Otterlo Circles,
the valorization of the archetype; in Alison and Peter Smithsons’s essays,
an interest in the traces of use and inhabitation; in Kurokawa’s projects, the
dialectics of the collective (structure) and the individual (pod). In fact, this is
the interpretation that made possible the launching of the Dutch-Japanese
confection known as the Structuralist Movement in architecture. 21

20.  Barthes, ibid.

21.  In his sweeping overview, Structuralism in Architecture and Urban Planning (1980), Arnulf
Lüchinger proposes that Team 10 (Van Eyck and Hertzberger in particular) was primarily a
translation of structuralist concerns into architecture. He states that the generation of bottom-up
form –which he finds already present in Le Corbusier’s 1935 project for a weekend house outside
of Paris- was a symbolic means through which the group sought to re-identify architecture and
the social. Lüchinger’s reading of the work of Team 10 has been contested on the grounds that the
scientific structuralism of Saussure and Levi-Strauss denied agency to the symbolic. In this regard,
Team 10 can be said to have been conceptually dissociated from the structuralist understanding
of language, which was predicated on the arbitrariness of signs and on the exclusion of symbolic

48
 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

Yet, given the reach that structuralism had acquired by the middle of the
1960’s, the complexity of the situation cannot be captured by a few broad
strokes. If one may speak of the influence of an anthropological structural-
ism animating the work of Team 10 –where the subject of architecture was
primarily a symbolic creature-, it is also necessary to invoke the equally
consequential incidence of a linguistic structuralism in the work of Peter
Eisenman, for whom the subject of architecture is a communicative entity.
As will be discussed further in Chapter 3, for Eisenman the influence of
structuralism played out on two levels. First (until the mid- 1970’s) as the
possibility to translate Saussure’s relation between language and speech as
a relation between the categories of universal form and relative form, and to
see this relation, with Noam Chomsky, as a generative one, that is to say, to
conceive of the structure as a freedom-enabling medium through which the
subject is able to articulate a message; second (after 1976), as the acceptance
of the notion that the subject of architecture may only pre-exist the work as
a culturally constructed apparatus, which is to be deconstructed, attacked,
and modified, by means of specific architectural operations.

To summarize: despite these diverging trends the adoption of the structure/

subject framework by architecture, starting surreptitiously in the decade of
1950 and expanding into a full-blown polemic by the 1970s, can be credited
for re-defining and valorizing the idea of individual agency in a context where
the image of the architect as a fully autonomous, self-conscious creator had
been all but dispelled. None of the discourses disputing the theoretical arena
of architecture could claim innocence with regards to the complexity of the
subject. Nor could they hide it under the carpet. If they were to become a
meaningful force, the user advocacy movements that flourished in the 60’s
would have to withhold similar assumptions. There could be no such thing
as a productive deployment of ‘the user’ unless its definition was recognized
as contingent and malleable, dynamic and incomplete. For many architects
that definition was to become the raison d’être of their professional activi-
ties. Whether such actions were to be executed through symbolic strategies
or by means of a syntactic dislocation of the subject’s perceptive matrix was
dependent on aesthetic and political choices that could no longer be inscribed
in a dichotomous framework.

An example of how the dialectic opposition between subject and object was
superseded by post-structuralist thinking can be found in the joint philo-
sophical production of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. In the introduction
to the second volume of their opus magnum, A Thousand Plateaus (1980),
they lay out some of the basic themes of their conception of knowledge and
the self. The nature of their book is defined using the wide-ranging metaphor
of the rhizome. Rather than a branching, hierarchical organization leading
back to the unity of the trunk -as represented in the image of the tree-, the

considerations. See: Irenée Scalbert, “From Anthropology to Structuralism”, in Team 10, Keeping the
Spirit of Modern Architecture Alive. Conference Proceedings, available at www.team10online.org

49
 rhizome embodies a model of radical heterogeneity, transversality, and
interconnectedness. The opening line of the book declares: “The two of us
wrote Anti-Oedipus together. Since each of us was several, there was already
quite a crowd”. The subsequent affirmation that their names as authors
were kept merely to preserve a comforting convention demonstrates their
abandonment of any notion of the integrity, identity, or coordination in the
subject, which will be defined as a virtual collectivity. Guattari would trace
the idea of the subject as a “plural and polyphonic” assemblage to the work
of Russian linguist Mikhail Bakhtin. Through the term heteroglossia –coined
by Bakhtin in the decade of 1930- it had become possible to think of a single
narrative, such as a novel, as composed of a multiplicity of overlapping voices.
Similarly, Guattari defines the subject as “the ensemble of conditions which
render possible the emergence of individual and/or collective instances as
self-referential existential territories, adjacent, or in a delimiting relation to
any alterity that is itself subjective”. 22 The subject is not constituted only by
means of human interaction, or by linguistic and institutional apparatuses,
but also by advanced technological machines, the arts, the media, etc. Through
it, “speak” all these heterogeneous, pre-personal “voices”.

Such a definition of the subject as a multiplicity provides an adequate means

to conceptualize the coming into being of architectural form as a type of het-
eroglossia. Without the need to relinquish the idea of design as an autopoietic
field, the possibility emerges to think of the production of form as a process
where several agencies –design theory amongst them- enter into a dynamic
composition, powering a recursive cycle that tangles the “before” and “after”
of buildings. This cycle undercuts the categorical separation of the causes of
a building –the subject’s representation-, from its consequences –the sub-
ject as an actual individual-, for the building is seen simply as an agent that
reproduces, with slight variations, forces that preexist and outlast it. This
circular logic also blurs the distinction between the formalist-communicative
and the functionalist-operational conceptions of architecture. As will be
analyzed in Chapter 3, the Anglo-Saxon intellectual context of the 1960’s had
pitted the functionalist tradition against a nascent formalist position rooted
in art history. According to these positions, a building could be rendered as
an index of the forces that have acted on its formation or it could be seen
as abstract machine with a potential to act. Post-structural analysis finally
renders this choice contingent upon an effort to articulate it within a given
context. It suggests that architectural form has to be understood as a special
type of gear within a process of continual transformation in which physical
and immaterial structures cyclically modify each other.

Early modern architectural agents

It is now possible to map at least two distinct functions/registers of architec-
ture’s subject: the cognitive (the discipline) and the political (the economic

22.  See: Félix Guattari, “On the Production of Subjectivity”: 9.

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 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

and institutional forces). Mediating between these, there exist a host of

symbolic figures whose definition is frequently wrested from the discipline,
which is then compelled to reprocess them for the sake of its survival. If the
cognitive subject can be located within the discipline as the production of
its own theory, the political subject is constructed by a philosophical and
political theorization of the social field.

Let us recall our previous characterization of the Renaissance, in which the

autonomy of the discipline had been premised on its separation from the
medieval organization of building production dominated by the guilds, and
by the interposition of a self-consistent corpus of knowledge between the
patron and the building. This prevented a noble or ecclesiastical authority
–someone like abbot Suger of Saint Denis- from claiming authorship of an
architectural masterpiece. For this new breed of humanists had appeared
whose pretense was to exercise exclusive competency over the acts of design,
collapsing and reorganizing previously distributed functions into a single
agency or figure of knowledge.

However, once the need for symbolic mediations in the relation between
architects and patrons had been established, what were these? In Europe’s
socio-political development two milestone events had a profound effect on
those mediations: the emergence of the people as the dominant subject of
collective political action during the 17th and 18th centuries, and the urbaniza-
tion of the agricultural proletariat that followed in the wake of the industrial
revolutions of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. A whole new section of
architecture’s development during this period can be explained as a response
to those conditions. The people, with its connotation of egalitarianism, found
expression in various forms of urban planning and civilian architectural rheto-
ric -or, at least this became one of the canonical interpretations of different
strands of Neo-classicism, from Thomas Jefferson’s to Francesco Milizia’s.23
However, until the middle of the 19th century the figure of the people was
tightly associated with the notion of the bourgeoisie, which in most European
nations represented a relatively minor fraction of the non-noble population.
Hence, the secular blow to baroque culture effected by Neoclassicism would
still remain tied to an early, pre-industrial stage of the metropolitan evolu-
tion. As opposed to previous ideological struggles that expressed themselves
through debates on style, character and type, the massive influx of workers
from the countryside into the industrial capitals of Europe presented, dur-
ing the 19th century, the unprecedented need for architecture to confront a
problem overwhelming in its quantitative and instrumental dimensions.

23.  See for example: Vincent Scully, Modern Architecture. The Architecture of Democracy (New
York: George Brazilier, 1961). More recently: Allan Greenberg, Architecture of Democracy (New
York: Rizzoli, 2006).

51

Above, right: Place Royale, Paris, 1612.
Engraving after Claude Chastillon.
Source: Hillary Ballon, The Paris of
Henry IV, 58.
Above: House of Jean de Moisset on
Place Royale, plan, 1831. Notice the
detached arcaded facade on the ground
floor facing the square. Source: Hillary
Ballon, The Paris of Henry IV, 106.
52
Constructing the Bourgeoisie
If compared with the European experiences of housing construction of the
17th and 18th centuries, it becomes evident that the process of urbanization
generated by 19th century industrialization cannot be read in quite the same
terms as the former, that is, as a deliberate effort to transform the urban
fabric by inserting into it a new condition of ‘publicness’. Paradigmatic resi-
dential squares in Paris such as the Place des Vosges, initiated by Henry IV as
Place Royale, and built between 1605-1612, and Place Vendôme, designed by
Jules-Harduin Mansart in 1699, had been conceived as an effort to make the
presence of the Ancien Régime visible as a synthetic image superimposed on
the tumult of the medieval city fabric.24 Even though their relationship to the
existing urban fabric differed significantly, residential designs by prominent
English architects such as the Royal Crescent, designed by John Wood the
Younger, 1767-1775, and the Camden Crescent, by John Eveleigh, 1788, both
in the city of Bath, introduced giant orders that conferred them a monumental,
public scale. Their palatial character is an attempt to construct a collective
identitarian principle for those who inhabited them –and, symbolically, for
the bourgeoisie as a whole- as the mirror image of the secular public spaces
24.  These projects were notably composed as regulated façades offering a sense of unity to the
public spaces they enclosed, while leaving freedom for individual designers to take care of the
actual accommodations behind this “mask”. John Habraken has seen this strategy as an early
instantiation of the necessary splitting between public and private domains that was often ignored
by modernist design. See: “Change and the Distribution of Design” in Bernard Leupen, Time Based
Architecture (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2005). The case of the Place Royale has been the subject
of recent studies confirming that their original goal was to accommodate commerce, workshops and
housing for silk producing artisans. Hilary Ballon provides a detailed account of this, while offering
compelling evidence that the configuration of the buildings is consistent with 16th century concepts
of bourgeois housing. See: Hilary Ballon, The Paris of Henry IV. Architecture and Urbanism. (New
York: MIT Press, 1991).
 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

they framed. Not unlike the Parisian practices mentioned above, English resi-
dential experiments are famed for successfully having negotiated real-estate
pressures and representational demands. In John Wood the Elder’s Queen
Square, built in Bath between 1729 and 1736, “each house was sub-leased to
owner-builders or builder-tradesmen who had a free hand in planning, but
who had to follow Wood’s elevations”.25 London underwent similar processes
during the 18th century. The planning and construction of Bedford Square
between 1776 and 1786, representing the first uniform urban space defined
by a regular perimeter of housing in the Georgian period, is another case
in point where speculative housing for a bourgeois clientele was conceived
as a means to develop the condition of the public realm. “The machinery
of development on the Bedford Estate was typical of Georgian times” -says
historian James Stevens Curl-, “a builder would acquire a building lease from
the freeholder, and the lease would vary in length... The builder would then
run up the shell of the house, the elevation conforming to a predetermined
pattern, then floor and roof the structure and apply a rough coat of plaster to
the internal walls. This would be done as quickly as possible, then the builder
could sell to an occupier, who would then fit out the house to his own taste
with chimney pieces, plasterwork, and so on.” 26

Above, left: Bedford Square, London,

1851. Watercolor by T. Hosmer
Shepherd. Source: Donald J. Olsen,
Town Planning in London. The
Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.
In these experiences we witness a process that compounds several agencies
(or voices): the state -especially in France-, the freeholder, the developer or Above: Plan of Bedford Square, London,
ca. 1795. Source: Donald J. Olsen, Town
general contractor -epitomized by Thomas Cubbit’s work in the construction Planning in London. The Eighteenth
and Nineteenth Centuries.
of Belgrave Square-, the architects -usually several involved-, the leaseholders,
and the final users of the buildings.27 The distribution of responsibilities that
characterized these processes was in itself a novel design. Not only did it map

25.  See: James Stevens Curl, Georgian Architecture in the British Isles 1714-1830 (Swindon: English
Heritage, 2011): 60.

26.   J. S. Curl, op. cit.: 339-340.

27.   See: John Wilton-Ely, “The Rise of the Professional Architect in England” in Spiro Kostof, op.
cit., 193-194.

53
Right: Royal Crescent, Bath, photograph
taken in 2005. Notice the irregularity of
the rear elevations.
Source: Adrian Pingstone, public
domain.

Right: Royal Crescent, Bath, plan, 1724.

Source: Leonardo Benevolo, Origins of
Modern Urbanism.

54
 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

an increasingly differentiated system of production, classifying and driving

each participating force into their own specialty field. It acknowledged the
construction of a public realm in the city as one of such fields, and established
the requisite to delegate certain powers in the hands of a specific professional
authority, the architect, deemed capable of providing a physical rendering of
that concept. Although this had been the accepted role of architects in their
previous engagements with the state and the church, the appearance of a
collective, non-institutional actor on whose behalf residential building and
urban development could be undertaken, echoes the schema by which the
people, now sovereign subject of political action, had begun to exert their
authority: by transferring their representation on to members of an assembly.

Reforming the laboring classes in England

In contradistinction to the surgical 18th century developments mentioned
above, the irruption of the steam-powered factory brought about an explo-
sion of urbanization in 19th century Europe; with this, a massive overhaul of
the configuration of the political forces at play in the city had to take place.
The deteriorating image of industrial towns on both sides of the Atlantic
was amply and effectively portrayed, foregrounding the deprivations of its
labor-class and eliciting moral and social condemnation. 28 Leading to the
Above: Market Court rookeries on
type of working-class revolts that began with the Paris upheavals of 1848, Kensignton High Street, London, circa
1870. Source: unknown.
the emergence of the urban proletariat would mark a new stage in the defi-
nition of the notion of the people as the prominent subject of political and
architectural action. However, before this reconfiguration of the metropolitan
society could be absorbed and reflected by a new form of organization of
the state –this would happen in different stages between the end of the 19 th
and the beginning of the 20th century- the dynamics of housing production
became subject to the action of various forms of philanthropic and reformist
ideologies. Only at this stage can we begin to see an incipient transforma-
tion within the architectural discipline, with the notion of “worker housing”
taking on a significant role. In England, the framework for this new concern
with housing was characterized by the predominance of a strongly liberal
economic climate and by the ubiquitous Victorian morality so aptly described

Above: Unauthorized lodgings in a

28.   In England the social consequences of industrialization were famously portrayed by Friedrich Bayard Street tenement, New York, circa
Engels in The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 (1845) and by Edwin Chadwick 1890. Source: Jacob A. Riis, How the
Other Half Lives.
in Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain (1842). Despite
the bleak situation narrated by Engels and Chadwick, John Burnett warns that an all-too-pessimistic
view of the general state of worker housing in the early days of the industrial revolution has
dominated architectural historiography, which neglects that, for example, the prevailing construction
material in the 19th century was brick, as opposed to older, more rudimentary systems, based on
timber. See his: A Social History of Housing 1815-1985 (London: Routledge, 1991 [1978]). For an
overview of the pre 20th century experience in England, see: Enid Gauldie, Cruel Habitations. A
History of Working-Class Housing 1780-1918 (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1974). For a report
on the living conditions in New York’s tenements see, Jacob A. Riis, How the Other half Lives
(1890). The case of Paris has been thoroughly documented as well. In Housing the Poor of Paris
1850-1902 (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), Ann-Louise Shapiro provides
an overview of the rise and influence of hygienist ideas in France, and offers an entry point to the
extensive array of primary and secondary literature on the subject.

55
Above: Henry Roberts. South and west
side of internal quadrangle to model
houses, Streatham-street. Source: Henry
Roberts, The Dwellings of the Labouring
Classes (1850).

Right: Henry Roberts, Project for

a double house with two distinct
tenements on two floors, the upper one
being approached by an open staircase.
Housing project for Streetham Street.
Source: Henry Roberts, The Dwellings of
the Labouring Classes (1850).

by Robin Evans. The 19th century housing reform was fueled, according to
Evans, not only by hygienic and sanitary preoccupations but, even more, by
a moral condemnation of the behaviors that could be descended into by the
working classes as a result of overcrowding and unhealthy living conditions.
“Philanthropic housing –writes Evans- was given shape by middle-class re-
formers and professionals who sought to re-mould the lower classes in their
own recently crystallized image. Through housing they could center the fam-
ily within the ‘ease and peace of comfort’ of a well-ordered home; thus they
hoped to take life off the streets, out of public houses, places of amusement
and nocturnal resorts, isolate it, parse it and bowdlerize it till all uproarious-
ness, passion and violence were wrung out. This was, after all, their explicit
aim”.29 In the face of such realities, the combined action of industrialists

29.  See: Robin Evans, “Rookeries and Model Dwellings. English Housing Reform and the Moralities
of Public Space” in Translations from Drawings to Buildings and other Essays (London:
Architectural Association, 1978): 112. “The close alignment between dwellings and moral character
sought by the Victorians has to a large extent been overshadowed by the sanitary aspects of reform,
although it would be hard to say whether ventilating the breeding grounds of cholera seemed any

56
 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

and philanthropists such as Sydney Waterlow, George Peabody, Titus Salt

and Octavia Hill, and adventurous architects like Henry Roberts found its
built expression in the series of projects known as Model Dwellings, which
dominated the polemic on housing between the middle and the end of the
19th century.30 Aside from a number of innovative technical provisions, these
projects involved a new subdivision and spatial classification attending to the
necessary separation between different families and to the individual needs
of the members of each group -their layout in plan configuring a topology
of movement and visual relations that effectively materialized a bourgeois
“map of the moral condition of the family”. 31

During the period comprised approximately between 1840 and 1890 a spe-
cific configuration of power relations thus gave form in England to a new
architectural problem, and a related set of typologies. These building types
embodied, on one hand, the socio-demographic pressures exerted by accel-
erated urbanization, but, on the other, the combined disciplining forces of
middle-class Victorian morality and of an emerging architectural discourse
on housing for a social class that had never before entered into the radar
of the profession. In fact, before County Councils were allowed to borrow
funds for the development of public housing projects –taking a decisive
step towards the emergence of social housing as was known throughout the
twentieth century, itself made possible by the passing of the Housing of the
Working Classes Act in 189032- a number of significant propositions had been
set forth either through competitions or in the form of textbooks, manuals
and treatises dealing specifically with the subject of “worker housing”.33 Yet,
many of the propositions by Henry Roberts, Robert Kerr or Banister Fletcher Above: Projects for model houses for
Glasgow and London criticized as
admittedly acted on the fringes of the architectural profession. Given that the inefficient and unhealthy by Banister
latter was still committed to impressing on the form of the building “certain Fletcher, Source: Banister Flectcher,
Model Houses for the Industrial Classes
characters venerable or beautiful, but otherwise unnecessary”, the profes- (1871).

sional contribution to housing had to be brought up somewhat stealthily,

and with plenty of caveats and justifications. 34 Henry Roberts, for example,
would introduce his 1850 address to the Institute of British Architects by

more urgent a task in 1850, than the dispersal of the ‘miasma of moral disease’”: 95.

30.  Henry Roberts, a Fellow of the Institute of British Architects, published in 1850 one of the
earliest and most comprehensive texts on worker housing of Victorian Era, The Dwellings of the
Labouring Classes. Their Arrangement and Construction. (London: The Society for Improving the
Condition of the Labouring Classes, 1850).

31.  Evans, op.cit.: 101.

32.  See: Charles E. Allan, The Housing of the Working Classes Acts 1890-1909 and The Housing
Acts. 1914. Annotated and Explained. Together with the Rules, Regulations, Forms, and
Instructions of the Local Government Board (London: Butterworth & Co., 1916). Digital facsimile
copy available at www.archive.org

33.  See: John N. Tarn, Working-class Housing in 19th Century Britain (London: Lund Humphries,
1971), especially Chapter 4: Housing and the Architectural Profession, pp. 17-23. The situation
of worker housing in France is dealt with by George Teyssot in “The Disease of the Domicile”, in
Assemblage No. 6 (6/1988): 72-97.

34.  John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849), quoted by John N. Tarn, op. cit.: 17.

57
 stating that “it is probable that but few members of the Institute have given
any special attention to those details, which I shall have to bring under your
notice; and certainly a yet more limited number have been professionally
engaged in a field of labour which apparently offers little scope for scientific
skill, and but few attractive points to an artist’s eye”. 35 Alongside the work
of contemporary French theoreticians César Daly and Émile Muller, Henry
Roberts’ writings and projects stand as one of the most important contribu-
tions to the discipline’s early engagement with labor class housing. 36

Beyond theoretical work, however, there was some room for projective specula-
tion through competitions, which nonetheless remained feeble and tentative.
A few notable housing projects were produced as a result of them but the
general perception was that, with strict financial restrictions in place, any
form of enterprise that involved a degree of architectural speculation was
prone to incur excessive costs or complications making the effort unworthy.
John Tarn recounts the competition for a building on Goswell Road, London,
that had been organized by Sidney Waterlow’s Improved Industrial Dwell-
ing Company in 1874; this competition had awarded prizes yet ultimately fell
back on the tried and tested practice of in-house design of their projects. This
chapter in the construction of an architectural discourse on housing would
come to a close when the prevailing diagram of forces -in which philanthropy
and liberalism played complementary roles- got altered by the appearance of
local authority in the acquisition of land, the enlisting of its own designers
and the expansion of its capacity to develop and build autonomously in the
name of the public good.

In all the experiences prior to that turn, an abstract subject had to be constructed
through a generalization of common perceived features for architectural design
to unfold. While a similar induction would take place in the later scenario of
publicly developed housing, 19th century philanthropy involved a particular
relationship between private organizations and private individuals. Operated
as businesses with shareholders (who expected at least a five percent yearly
return on their investments), the projects were mobilized by pre-scientific
representations and, above all, by a political imperative to soothe a potentially
disruptive clientele. An exemplary construction of the needs of the working
class in that context is illustrated by the discussion between an “advanced”
Robert Kerr, and his more orthodox counterparts who believed that a three
bedroomed Model Dwelling was the lowest common denominator for worker
housing. In 1866 Kerr audaciously proposed a model of terraced and stacked

35.  See: Henry Roberts, op. cit.: 1.

36.   Émile Muller, famous for his designs for worker housing in the French city of Mulhouse,
published Les Habitations Ouvrières en tous Pays. Situation en 1878. Avenir (Paris: J. Dejey & Cie,
1879), a compilation of numerous examples of housing projects from twelve different countries.
César Daly also explored the issue in his three volume L’architecture privée au XIXe siècle, sous
Napoléon III: nouvelles maisons de Paris et des environs (Paris, 1864). Digital facsimiles copies of
both works are available at www.gallica.bnf.fr.

58
 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

single rooms joined by a continuous front balcony without cooking facilities or

private lavatories, which were grouped for common use. Author of the popular
book The Gentleman’s House, Kerr understood that his vast knowledge of the
English house and its inhabitants was not quite the kind of expertise that was
required here, where the pragmatics of finance and the “rudimentary” life-
styles of the poor dictated an altogether different approach. Banister Fletcher
published in 1871 his Model Houses for the Industrial Classes, where, on the
contrary, he assumed that “if working-class dwellings appeared to resemble
those of the middle class they would be more acceptable to their occupants”. 37
Despite these attempts, strictly speaking, there was very little disciplinary
reflection on issues of social housing prior to 1900. Most prescription and
initiative lay outside of it, i.e. in the hands of social reformers, or at any rate,
in that of architects acting in that same role.

1.2 Mass Housing and the Welfare State

The User as Discourse

As argued earlier, architecture’s self-representations have been stirred by
recurring crises in the definition of its subject, each of which has forced it to
reshape its theoretical principles. The economic crises that beset Latin America
and East Asia at the end of the 1990’s and the advanced economies of Europe
and the United States in 2008, are perhaps the most recent of them. In the
reactions developed by the architectural discipline to these crises a call to arms
has often been made against perceived ills such as academicism, autonomy,
and –foremost- abstraction. Yet, every time the labors of architecture have
attempted to overcome this apparently sterile domain, the result has been
a correction of a path of development, and the ultimate replacement of one
system of abstractions for another. It is therefore not anachronistic to pose
the question of abstraction again, even if only to remind ourselves that the
aforementioned processes have historically been necessary readjustments
in the relation between architecture and capitalist development.

By opposition to the empirical act of erecting an object capable of being

inhabited, architecture has always consisted in an effort to endow even the
most ordinary structure with interest and beauty. Beyond the disagreements
as to what that beauty might entail –including the possibility of its reduction
to the ordinary-, the actions of architecture have meant an attempt to raise a
fragment of reality from the plain field of the generic; to quote Mies van der
Rohe’s Hegelian dictum, “to give the spirit the opportunity for existence”. 38
Notwithstanding Mies, the issue appears to have remained contentious for

37.  John N. Tarn, Op. cit.: 18-20.

38.   Mies Van Der Rohe, “The New Era”, Speech delivered at the Werkbund meeting in Vienna, in
The Artless Word, edited by Fritz Neumeyer and Mark Jarzombek (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
1994).

59
 the better part of the 20th century. The persistent confrontation between an
adherence to a logic of autonomous cultural production, and the credo of
outward social service shows that the dispute around the question of archi-
tecture’s duties towards society has not been settled.

Indeed, the contemporary re-enactment of the debate on whether the ar-

chitect should be aligned above all with the external forces of its political
subject (and thus dissolve its autonomy into that of a greater entity), or if it
should remain loyal to the mandates of its trade is an inevitable reminder
of the dilemmas confronted by the discipline as it entered into the logic of
the welfare state. In that context, architecture’s commitment to abstract
sets of rules and principles as the basis of its legitimacy –whether those be
concerned with space, matter, or organization- was thoroughly questioned,
shaking its identity and prompting its wholesale redefinition. So profound
was the revision imposed on it, in fact, that an entirely new configuration
of disciplinary knowledge was forced to emerge; one whose contours af-
fect and condition our very understanding of what architecture, today, is
all about. What this implied was nothing less than the production of a new
level of disciplinary consciousness by means of which it became possible to
practice architecture in novel ways, and to talk about it in wholly new terms.
It became possible, for example, for architects to enlist notions such as the
ordinary, the layperson, the everyday, and the user, among many others,
as creative forces driving the design process. But this entailed an apparently
irresolvable paradox, for if those concepts were thought of, in the first place,
as capable of challenging architecture’s technocratic, doctrinaire abstraction,
they were nonetheless, new abstractions themselves. As a consequence of its
inability to overcome this paradox, architecture, irremediably tied as it is
to the dominant economic and political forces, was compelled to part ways
with fields such as urban planning and geography, where the denunciation
of abstraction had taken its firmest roots.

From the broad set of consequences opened by the critique of architecture’s

abstraction, our focus is the postwar influence on collective housing of the
notion of the user. Specifically: how it came about, what were its various mean-
ings, what polemics it was part of, and how its instrumentalization ushered
in a new cultural scenario. In this process, the threshold of architecture’s
formal complexity was raised to previously unexplored heights. Furthermore,
by internalizing the polemics of the user, in all of its divergent implications,
architecture laid the stepping stones of what would be later described as
the era of postfordist production. As it adjusted to those conditions, the
discipline evolved frameworks and practices that overcame the aporias of
interwar CIAM ideology and gave birth to new forms of intellectual leader-
ship. Taken as a whole, those developments can be described as an evolving
network of concepts, people, institutions and artifacts. They operated most
prominently in a transnational space within northern Europe, although they
established connections to Africa, Asia, North, and South America. Historically,

60
 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

this network functioned as a bridge between what is known as the “heroic

period” of modern architecture, and an epoch characterized by disappoint-
ment, skepticism, and general suspicion about the project of modernity. 39

The discourse on the user emerged amid a frenzy of construction and planning
projects in Europe: a quantitative effort historically unmatched, centered
on a broad territory encompassing the United Kingdom, Holland, Germany,
France, Sweden -where the Million Homes program was successfully carried
out between 1965 and 1974-, and (under a different set of conditions) the
Americas. But if the influence of the user became widespread already in the
early 1960’s –stemming from 1950’s empirical sociology, permeating all the
practices associated with the reconstruction efforts, and turning into a grow-
ing set of official prescriptions for design-, the vast network from which it
rose, pivots around a focalized number of discussions and building initiatives.
Beyond being a palliative for a critical social situation the housing shortage
created by the Second World War and the ensuing economic and demographic
boom-, these initiatives stand out for their success at reducing the practical
problems at hand to a number of abstract architectural formulations. On this
account, they not only transcended the most immediate requirements placed
upon them, but they also articulated design techniques with which to tackle
the pressing cultural need for the production of identity and personalization.

To add yet another layer to an already complex setting, the evolution of the
notion of the user partakes of a wider movement away from universal values,
toward augmenting architecture’s sensitivity for the local and particular. 40
Thus, not only the user, but also the local climate, technologies, habits, and
traditions, became the signposts of a debate that kept crossing cultural and
geographic barriers in an increasingly globalized exchange. This is attested
to by the ever expanding circulation of European and American publications
(the British magazine Architectural Design used to include summaries of
some of its articles in up to four languages), the exchange and “trafficking” of
ideas through apprenticeships, study trips, and site visits that became feasible
for young architects after the end of the war –even before its completion Le
Corbusier’s Unité d’habitation had become a pilgrimage destination for young
architects-, and not least, through the exchanges held between the members

39.  This is the view held by Max Risselada, Dirk van den Heuvel and Gijs de Waal in their jointly
edited volume on Team 10. See: Team 10. Keeping the Language of Modern Architecture Alive.
Proceedings of the Conference organized by the Faculty of Architecture, Delft University of
Technology, 5th and 6th of January 2006.

40.  Kenneth Frampton’s “Critical Regionalism” was published originally in 1983 and later added
as a final chapter to his Modern Architecture: A Critical History. In its opening, Frampton quotes
a passage from the book History and Truth, written by Paul Ricoeur in 195, as an indictment of a
proto-globalizing process that he held responsible for the “subtle destruction… of the ethical and
mythical nucleus of mankind”. See “Critical Regionalism: Six points for an architecture of resistance”
in Kurt Foster (ed.) The Anti-Aesthetic. Essays on Postmodern Culture (Seattle, WA: Bay Press,
1983).

61
 of Team 10 themselves during their regular meetings and informal contacts.41
In fact, as proven by a recent study on the journeys of Le Corbusier during the
period he worked for the Indian government, the expansion of commercial
air travel during the 1950’s was one of the primary conditions responsible
for the emergence of a truly global mode of architectural discourse and prac-
tice.42 According to later theorizations, such conditions –i.e. the possibility
of engaging a given cultural context from an outsider position- forged the
idea of the local, or better, the myth of the local.43

Local authority dwellings in hig-rise

blocks as a proportion of total approvals,
by story-height categories 1953-1973.
Source: Patrick Dunleavy, The Politics of
Mass Housing in Brtinain.

The approach to the conceptual universe of the user cannot be divorced

from the history of social housing in the postwar period. As is known, social
housing has received ample attention from historians. For the purposes of
this dissertation, the existing historical studies can be roughly classified
by differentiating between those that focus on the cultural, economic, and
political dimensions of housing, and those that provide an architectural
treatment of the issue. The first take is concerned with mass housing as the
result of the brute forces of economic, political and social development that

41.  Aldo Van Eyck was one of Team 10’s most internationalized members. Having studied and
worked in Holland, England and Switzerland, his trips and articles on the Dogon habitat in Africa are
well documented. See Karin Jaschke, “Mythopoiesis of Place and Culture: Aldo Van Eyck, Herman
Haan and the Dogon”, in Max Risselada, Dirk van den Heuvel and Gijs de Waal (eds.), Op. cit.

42.  Beatriz Colomina, “Toward a Global Architect”, in Architects’ Journeys. Building, Travelling and
Thinking, edited by Craigh Buckley and Pollyanna Rhee (New York: GSAAP Books, 2011).

43.  “The word local always implies the return from a journey –a return to something now thought
of as local, a return to something that was supposedly there before the journey but was never
experienced as such before”, see Mark Wigley, “The Myth of the Local”, in Craigh Buckley and
Pollyanna Rhee, Op. cit. p. 210.

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 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

shaped Europe between the late 1940’s and mid 1970’s. 44 Given the modes
and scales of the effort, particularly in countries like France, Holland, and the
United Kingdom, where output was sustained through a state-led effort, the
landscape of housing production inevitably had to rely on the definition of
generic protocols that allowed repeatability. Because of the breakneck speed
at which these construction efforts were usually conducted, it was unlikely
that much, other than the implementation of those protocols, could take place
within the timespan of any single architectural project. As a consequence of
this, little experimentation was possible, unless –as Kenny Cupers argues
is the case in France- the entire experience of mass housing production was
taken to be an experimental venture.45 If the latter is true, however, the ex-
periment would have had to reside at the level of state planning rather than
in the context of independent architectural production. Thus, architecture
discourse would come to play a peripheral role in this type of endeavor. 46

The category of the user, as adopted here, relates with the perspective de-
veloped by Cupers in that it is concerned with its function within a process
of material production, rather than with the agency of the actual individuals
it was supposed to refer to. And this has to do both with an interest in un-
covering the impact that a given theoretical set-up may have on the actions
of persons and institutions, and also in the hypothesis that “the drama” of
housing production during the period considered “was less about the inhabit-
ants, than about those who spoke and built in their name”. 47

Despite this proximity, to focus on the architectural contribution to collec-

tive housing production entails a departure from a cultural and political
history perspective on at least two counts. First –and this is both an issue
of personal interest and a matter of historical relevance-, it is addressed
less at the generic protocols that regulated the bulk of housing production,
and more at the critical and paradigmatic attempts to transform what was

44.  Among the most significant sources representing that approach in Britain should be mentioned:
Miles Glendinning and Stephan Muthesius, Tower Block. Modern Public Housing in England,
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994) and John R. Short,
Housing in Britain. The Post-War Experience (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1982). See also: Patrick
Dunleavy, The Politics of Mass Housing in Britain. 1945-1975 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981). The
French case was studied in depth by Kenny Cupers in “In Search of the User: The Experiment of
Modern Urbanism in Post-war France. 1955-1975” (2010). PhD dissertation, Harvard University,
later edited and published as The Social Project; and W. Brian Newsome, French Urban Planning
1940-1968. The Construction and Destruction of an Authoritarian System (New York: Peter Lang
Publishers, 2009).

45.  Kenny Cuppers, Op. cit.

46.  One should point out that national differences mattered greatly with regards to the modes of
production of housing, and the ensuing possibilities for architectural experimentation. Central
planning in France meant that the scale of the undertakings was frequently larger and the processes
of their execution more dependent on state bureaucracy. Local housing policies in Britain, on the
contrary, provided greater freedom and flexibility in project development, and in general, a context
more prone to innovation.

47.  Kenny Cuppers, Op. cit. p. 4.

63
 regarded as an orthodoxy of design thinking often cloaked in bureaucratic
garb. The question is not what the virtual forces behind the form of housing
in general were, but what it was, about certain projects, that allowed them
to engender or fabricate a user that could not have existed without their
intervention. Therefore, by definition, our concern has to be centered on
projects that are distinctive by merit of their capacity to add new and specific
qualifications to an otherwise abstract and generic idea of the user. Second,
the architectural perspective foregrounds interpretation as a means for a
redescription of reality, over and above the unearthing of new historical facts.
It accepts the established architectural canon of housing making no effort,
in principle, to questioning it. The goal is not to challenge those narratives
but to place historical materials in a context of interpretation that will turn
them into an active force through which to measure our own contemporary
efforts on housing.

This offers an opportunity to explore, in its formative stages, a set of condi-

tions that are constitutive of architecture’s continued involvement with the
ideas personalization and heterogeneity as the expression of an attempt to
reconcile the individual and the collective. It affords us a terrain in which to
unearth a “preconscious topology”48 of our contemporary preoccupation with
the user and to imagine its possible place within alternative configurations
of the subject of the architecture of collective housing.

Beyond the Linearity Threshold

Above: Cover of Architectural Review,
December 1955.
According to Norbert Wiener’s famous statement, emergent phenomena in
history can be imagined as “whirlpools in a river of ever flowing matter”. 49
The concepts and artifacts engendered by the polemics on the user and the
architecture of housing after WWII could be equally conceptualized in terms
of a bottom-up, emergent dynamic. During the period of approximately thirty
years that spanned the end of the war and the upsurge of the neoliberal state,
two worldviews met and interacted giving shape to a unique set of historical
conditions for architecture. As one of those worldviews reached past its peak
and drew to its demise -the linear organization of society manifested in the
development model of the welfare state and the fordist mode of production-
and the other one began to rise -the conception of societal development that
sees it as inherently complex and non-linear, and seeks responses to this
through modes of production oriented toward greater heterogeneity- the
stage was set for some of the most radical experiments in the history of col-
lective housing to take place.

The first set of conditions derives from an interpretation of the Second World
War as the hinge that allowed the culture of modernity to reach a higher

48.  I borrow this expression from Christopher Hight.

49. Wiener referred specifically to human life and consciousness. See: The Human Use of Human
Beings. Cybernetics and Society. (Boston, MA: Da Capo Press, 1988 [1954]).

64
 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

degree of reflectivity and self-knowledge. 50 During the 1950’s and 1960’s

the field of western architecture internalized the consequences of WWII by
pushing its dominant discourse towards a plethora of new organizational and
expressive tropes, such as New Brutalism, New Monumentality, NeoLiberty,
New Empiricism, New Humanism, or Metabolism. In the context of the de-
struction wrought by the war, those isms functioned as armatures through
which architecture attempted to furnish the reconstruction efforts with a
conceptual and existential dimension. Such attempts proved increasingly
relevant, as the euphoria of state-produced mass housing that had obtained
in northern and central Europe started to expose severe inadequacies and
limitations already by the late 1950’s. As this period of intense involvement
with social housing moved forward, architecture’s previous modes of ar-
ticulation with the state –characterized, until then, by different degrees of
complicity, ranging from the participation in public competitions for large
scale housing, to the integration of large in-house design teams such as the
architecture department of the London County Council-, became gradually
more distanced or more complicated. Tainted by distrust, the new relation-
ship with the state reflected an overall reconfiguration of the power dynam-
ics in western democracies, where the rise to prominence of new collective
actors, ideologies, and forms of expertise, had begun to shape what today
we call “the civil society”. As attested to by the few sections left un-built in
Ralph Erskine’s project for Byker, by the end of the 1970’s skepticism and
suspicion had become rampant. With architecture’s reputation in question,
the economic hardships that had started in 1973 became the trigger for a
political sea-change that drove progressive administrations in the UK and
the USA out of power, and led to a drastic reduction or downright suspension
of all the funding for public collective housing.

Meanwhile, the same events that had exposed the perverse aspect of mod-
ernization spawned a number of watershed developments in mathematics,
physics and computation in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s -most of them
direct by-products of the arms race that had been set up by the war. Initially
fuelled by the need to develop mathematical tools for such enterprises as
the Manhattan Project, new descriptive models of nature shook the cultural
ground by questioning concepts such as order, control, entropy, reversibility
and linearity. Sociologist Talcott Parsons thus acknowledged the “complexity
and heterogeneity of a society like ours”, while Herbert Gans pondered if
social heterogeneity could be the key to the success of a community.51 As their
consequences spread through entire scientific fields, these events began to
outline a sweeping new cultural paradigm based on complexity theory and

50.  Or claims to have reached it. The philosophical quest for a new “essence of man” by neo-Kantians
and phenomenologists, and Frankfurt School’s Critical Theory can be seen as proofs.

51.  Talcott Parsons, The Social System, (London: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1951): 232. Herbert
Gans, “The Balanced Community. Homogeneity or Heterogeneity in Residential Areas?”, in Journal
of the American Institute of Planners Vol. 27 No. 3 (1961): 176-184.

65
 “the new and fundamental science called cybernetics” 52 -as announced by
Martin Heidegger in 1969-; one whose breadth and momentum have only
increased right until our present day.

In short, the historical conditions of the postwar world display a shift not only
in the modes of material production, but also in the philosophic and scientific
frameworks that explained and enabled such changes. The latter implied an
abandonment of a predominantly mechanistic, linear worldview, and the
upsurge of the arrow of time, emergence, development, and complexity, as
the kernels of organization. The former, the establishment of dynamic proto-
cols of industrial production and capital accumulation capable of harnessing
the potential of an increasingly integrated urban network across the globe.

Right: Alison and Peter Smithson, Entry

for the Sheffield University Competition
(1953).

The Architectural Pursuit

Amid these conditions, architecture embarked on its own ambitious project.
In this project, architecture sought to outperform its achievements of the
1940’s and early 1950’s in the field of housing. Those developments came
now to be regarded as merely technical, quantitative successes. The chal-

52. Martin Heidegger, “The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking”, in Basic Writings, 2nd.
Edition (New York: Harper Collins, 1977): 434. Quoted by Christopher Hight.

66
 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

lenge, as had been articulated by the young couple formed by Alison (Gill)
and Peter Smithson in 1955, was now to “re-identify man with his house,
his community, his city”.53 Rising to it involved, in the first place, an effort
to define anew the attributes of the subject of architecture, to re-render its
needs and capabilities, and the modes by which it could aggregate to create
larger entities. Again, it was the Smithsons who formulated this search ex-
plicitly in the context of their competition entry projects of the late 40’s and
early 50’s. Although the British scene showed its first signs of intellectual
reactivation in the early 50’s –think of projects such as Alton West, 1955,
or the competition for the expansion of Sheffield University, 1953; or, more
generally, the formation of vanguard organizations such as The Independent
Group- the most compelling expression of the new search was to be found
in the Smithsons’ unsuccessful entry project and accompanying text for the
Golden Lane housing competition (1952): “a community should be built up
from a hierarchy of associational elements… we are of the opinion that such
a hierarchy of human associations should replace the functional hierarchy
of the ‘Chartre d’ Athènes’”. This hierarchy suggested a principle of internal
organization and differentiation within the community that was guided not
by an imperative of material production (as the functional classification
proposed by the CIAM grid), but by a need to restore it to a state of internal
cohesion. In both form and social intent, Golden Lane stood for an alterna-
tive to the generic tower block typology already being deployed.

The reception of state-funded collective housing in Europe had been initially

very positive, not least because of the greatly improved possibilities it deliv-
ered for hygiene, cooking, and heating, as enhancements of material life. But
by the following decade it had become clear to a growing class of political,
scientific and professional commentators that the instruments that were to
foster identification and internal social cohesion were no longer based on
the provision of greater comfort in housing. If the goals set by the Smithsons
and Team 10 were to be achieved, the beneficiaries of housing programs had
to be seen as the middle-class consumers (real or imagined) they had be-
come; and the community they formed part of had to be apprehended in its
multi-leveled complexity. This was interpreted, on the one hand, as a need to
develop isomorphisms between architecture and the structure of community.
“The studies of association and identity”, wrote the Smithsons to that effect,
“led to the development of systems of linked building complexes which were
intended to correspond more closely to the network of social relationships,
as they now exist, than the existing closed patterns of finite spaces and
self-contained buildings”.54 On the other hand, users’ expectations were not
limited anymore to a properly serviced, heated, insulated, and well-lit dwell-

53. Alison and Peter Smithson, “Urban Re-Identification,” first published in Architectural Design No.
6 (6/1955); published in expanded form in Ordinariness and Light: Urban Theories 1952-1960 and
Their Application in a Building Project 1963-1970 (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1970).

54.  See: Alison Smithson, Peter Smithson, and Theo Crosby (eds.) Uppercase 3 (1960). Reprinted in
Team 10 Primer, cit.

67
 ing; they now called for an image that conveyed individuality, variety, and
greater choice. When referring to a greater “availability of choice” as a means
to generate identification, the dynamic, bi-directional and non-deterministic
nature of the process was upheld by some of the leading architectural figures,
as opposed to a static, scientifically determined concept of self-identity that
would then need to be translated into the physical form of a building. 55 As
much as subjective needs or opinions could be objectified, so popular culture
was seen as an agent of production of subjectivity -and there was no reason
to deny buildings the same productive capacity. 56

As this search unfolded, between the 1950’s and the 1970’s, the conception
of society become radically altered; it was no longer seen in terms of the mo-
lar totality of the mass but as the bottom-up assemblage of heterogeneous,
independent, and opinionated individuals. A set of critical questions for
architecture were posed and answered through design and written specula-
tion: What were the attributes of the new subject? How could architecture
contribute to their consistent aggregation through collective organization?

The User as Alibi

It is not so much the agency of the user as a person, but the ways in which it
was conceptualized that matter here. To posit the user as a figure on whose
behalf was written a significant chapter in the history of social housing means
to emphasize the evolving representations of the individual and its relation-
ship to the collective, and the practices and artifacts that these conceptions
made possible. These conceptions were constructed thanks to the knowledge
production of the fields that scientifically studied human behavior, and were
applied in various ways to design practice in order to orchestrate, enable and
mediate such relationships within the purview of housing. 57

55.  “In England we are in a state of change towards a middle-class society which will correspond
roughly to the sort of set-up which exists in Sweden or the United States, and in such a society
the value of social anthropology study seems to me to be pretty low as far as being able to use it
creatively. Social anthropology will never be able to tell you what to do […] what the pattern is to be
now seems to me more a matter of men than social anthropology”. See: Peter Smithson, “Discussion”
Architectural Design (6/1957). Reprinted in Team 10 Primer, cit. p. 43.

56.  “Mass production advertising is establishing out whole pattern of life –principles, morals, aims,
aspirations, and standard of living. We must somehow get the measure of this intervention if we are
to match its powerful and exciting impulses with our own”, Peter Smithson, “But Today we Collect
Ads” Ark No. 18 (11/1956).

57.  The tradition of research on user studies had developed since the 1950’s with roots in sociology,
anthropology, and psychology. An overview of the early years of this evolution can be consulted
in: Claire Cooper-Marcus, “User Needs Research in Housing”, in Sam Davies (ed.) The Form of
Housing (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1977). Robert Gutman’s compilation,
People and Buildings (New York: Basic Books, 1972) presents a broad cross section of the state
of the art in the early 1970’s. In architecture this was taken up from a theoretical standpoint by
Christopher Alexander since the 1970’s, and, from a historical perspective, by Philippe Boudon’s
Livedin Architecture. Le Corbusier’s Pessac Revisited. (New York: MIT Press, 1972). More recently,
Time Builds! (Barcelona: Gustavo Gili, 2010) has been released as an empirical assessment of the
experimental project PREVI Lima.

68
 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

The emergence of the user in architectural discourse is set in the transition

from a societal model structured by the Keynesian ideal of state planning and
regulation, to a subsequent system characterized by ideals of self-regulation,
in which the market and the civil society were to acquire predominant roles.
In this transition, the user functioned as bridge with often imprecise or am-
bivalent connotations. Until the late 1950’s the term was seldom employed,
and when it appeared, it lacked a well-defined agenda. 58 It was either utilized
in a very general sense –as for example, in Le Corbusier’s Modulor II-, or
under the assumption that it referred to a citizen, characterized as someone
whose primary position within the collective would be defined by its interac-
tion with the state; an interaction limited, at least theoretically, to receiving
its provisions and benefits, and to participating in public matters by voting.
This situation would change drastically in the early 1960’s, when the scientific
construction of the concept was to adopt openly political overtones.

Pre-1960: Towards a science of needs

If the widespread adoption of the term user would take place in the discus-
sions on housing and institutional architecture at the beginning of the 1960’s,
the figure of the recipient of state benefits in the form of a dwelling and
its furnishings had become the focus of architectural attention during the
previous decades. This attention, however significant for the discipline, was
by no means equivalent to the analytical constructions that would be later
enabled by the technical and conceptual apparatuses of the early postwar
phase. But the issue of human needs as a determinant of architectural form
had been planted already by the early 1920’s. One need not go further than
recalling Le Corbusier’s plea, in 1925, for the recognition of type-needs as
the basis of standardization in industrial production. Individual expression
within the dwelling –previously achieved in the bourgeois house by means
of the idiosyncratic combination of decorative furniture- was to be jettisoned
by the recognition of the universality of the human condition. “To search for
human scale, for human function, is to define human needs. They are not very
numerous; they are very similar for all mankind, since man has been made
from the same mold from the earliest times known to us”, he would write,
clarifying with candor that “the client [of decorative art] is a man, familiar to
all of us, and precisely defined.”59 But in the postwar scenario, Le Corbusier’s
niceties from the 1920’s were no longer viable. The success achieved in the
1950’s by the new disciplines of housing sociology, housing psychology,
and urban sociology, would mean that state-sponsored empirical research,

58.  For example, there are instances of the appearance of the term user in France, during the 1940’s.
See André Lurçat’s project for Maubege, and Le Corbusier’s Looking at City Planning (New York,
Grossman Publishers: 1971), original edition: Manière de penser l’urbanisme (Boulogne-sur-Seine:
Éditions de l’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, Collection ASCORAL, 1946).

59.  See: Le Corbusier, “Type-needs. Type- furniture”, in The Decorative Arts of Today. Translated
and introduced by James I. Dunnett (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1987 [1925]): 69-79.

69

Above: Housing Manual (Dudley
Report), published by the British
Ministry of Health (1944).
70
executive reports, and guidelines for design could acquire normative status.60
Examples of this type of research abounded in the northern hemisphere. In
the United States the Ford Foundation established the Educational Facili-
ties Laboratories as a center for the study of school building models, under
the spell of functionalist sociology, issuing significant reports and recom-
mendations for architectural design.61 The French experience is perhaps best
represented by the studies of sociologist Paul-Henry Chombart de Lauwe,
whose findings based on empirical surveys, resulted in practical recommen-
dations for design and space planning standards for housing.62 Likewise,
entities such as the Housing Research Unit (later, Architecture Research
Unit), founded by Robert Matthew at Edinburgh University in 1958 would
build on the tradition established in the 1920’s by the Building Research
Station, displacing its orientation from construction and fire-proofing to
usage and experience evaluation.63
The British experience is noteworthy, not just due to its articulation between
state regulation and architectural research, but also because of the way
knowledge was disseminated and enforced through official publications. As
mentioned, the construction efforts that needed to be undertaken immediately
after the end of the war demanded a great deal of systematization and expedi-
ency. During the early years of the reconstruction, the rebuilding activities
could not avoid a marked emphasis on output and a focus on ameliorating the
overcrowded conditions that characterized much urban housing built since the
19th century.64 This was reflected in official documents issued in preparation
for postwar reconstruction such as the report by the government-appointed
Dudley Commission in 1944 and its Housing Manual (which identified
“special occupants” such as rural workers, old people, and single persons,
and defined strict standards for room sizes and recommended adequate-size
neighborhood units of 5 to 10 thousand people) and its 1949 follow-up and
60.  See: Robert K. Merton, “The Social Psychology of Housing”, in Wayne Dennis (ed.), Current
Trends in Social Psychology (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press: 1948), Catherine Bauer,
“Social Questions in Housing and Community Planning”, in Journal of Social Issues No. 1-2, Vol.
7 (1951), Henry Cohen, “Social Surveys as Planning Instruments for Housing: Britain”, Journal
of Social Issues, Cit. Svend Riemer and N. J. Demerath, “The Role of Social Research in Housing
Design”, in Land Economics No. 3, Vol. 28 (1952): 230-243.
61.  See: Avigail Sachs, “Architects, Users, and the Social Sciences in Postwar America”, in Kenny
Cupers (ed.) Use Matters: An Alternative History of Architecture (New York: Routledge, 2013):
70-84.
62.  See: W. Brian Newsome, French Urban Planning 1940-1968 (New York: Peter Lang Publishing,
2009): 130-131.
63.  See: Soledad Garcia Ferrari, Miles Glendinning, Paul Jenkins and Jessica Taylor, “Putting the
User First? A pioneering Scottish experiment in architectural research” in Architectural Heritage
Volume 19, Issue 1 (11/2008): 53-82.
64.  Patrick Dunleavy provides valuable information on the scale and type of housing units built in
England and Wales during the period 1953-1975. At an average rate of about 120.000 units of public
housing per year, the 1950’s saw a steady decline (until 1964) of low-rise construction and a steep
increase in the construction of high-rise tower-blocks, which peaked in 1966. See: The Politics of
Mass Housing in Britain, 1945-1975, cit.
 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

revision (which emphasized diversity of dwelling types and treated each type
in detail)65. But it was not until the publication of the Parker Morris Report
in 1961 that sociological research became an influential factor in shaping a
generic idea of the user in the British context. Parker Morris was followed
by the publication, also by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, of
a number of didactic Design Manuals66, meant to ensure that designers and
developers would stick to the latest findings on patterns of living by means
of check lists, standard plans, diagrams, and dimensional tables.

Homes for Today and Tomorrow, as the report written by the Parker Mor-
ris Commission was titled, created standards for housing design that would
dominate public housing output until it was abolished in 1980. Based on
extensive empirical research and conceptual guidance from sociology, the
report acknowledged a drastic shift in the social and urban conditions in
Britain. “Since the end of the war”, it stated, “the country has undergone a
social and economic revolution, and the pattern of living is still changing
fast. There is full employment, a national health service, and the various
social insurance benefits such as family allowances and retirement pensions.
In material terms, people are better off than ever before… One household
in three has a car, the same proportion have a washing machine. Television
sets are owned by two households in three; so are vacuum cleaners; and one
household in five has a refrigerator… All these changes are beginning to mean
a more enjoyable home life”.67 Based on this diagnosis, the recommendations
issued in the report focus on three main themes: space standards, flexibility,
and diversity of dwelling types. Space standards were to be increased in hous- Above: Homes for Today and Tomorrow
ing in response to the greater number of belongings, including household (Parker-Morris Report), published by the
British Ministry of Housing and Local
appliances, furniture, personal items, and cars, owned by the occupant. In Government (1961).

particular, this should be translated into increased storage space, as well as

balconies and outdoor recreation space. The issue of flexibility was also seen
as critical for the design of future homes. Two assumptions underlie this: on
one hand the idea that greater efficiency of use would be possible if a homo-
geneous heating system was to be provided; on the other, the belief that an
analytical framework for the design of the dwelling should look primarily at
activities, instead of being fixated on the size of rooms. The user-occupant
was seen to require isolation and privacy for certain activities, but if the
coalfuelled fireplace remained the sole –or main- source of heating for the
dwelling, then possibilities for simultaneous usage of the different rooms
in the house would be curtailed. Likewise, space standards were no longer

65.  See: Ministry of Health, Housing Manual 1944 (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1944),
and Ministry of Health, Housing Manual 1949 (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1949).

66.  For example: Ministry of Housing and Local Government, House Planning. A Guide to User
Needs with a Checklist. Design Bulletin 14 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1968); W. V.
Hole and J. J. Attenburrow, Houses and People: A Review of User Studies at the Building Research
Station (London: Her Majesty´s Stationary Office, 1966).

67.  Ministry of Housing and Local Government, Homes for Today & Tomorrow, (London: Her
Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1961): 1-2.

71

Below: Excerpts with illustrative
diagrams taken from the Parker Morris
Report (1961).
72
regarded as a property of individual rooms, but were considered in relation
to the entire dwelling. As a consequence of this, greater freedom was given
to the designers as well as to the occupants, who might wish to rearrange the
layout of their homes in connection to their evolving lifestyles but without
bureaucratic hindrances.68 Finally, the report considered different forms of
co-habitation, subsumed under the label “families”: couples with children,
married couples, persons living alone, and elderly couples. Although this clas-
sification was still basic, it hinted at an increasing awareness of the diversity
of the social fabric that the housing process was catered to. In translating
an empirically informed conception into operative guidelines, the Parker
Morris Report became a landmark episode within the ongoing process of
construction of the user of public housing in Great Britain.
Post 1961: From User to Producer
The architecturally eventful year of 1961 signals a pivotal moment in the
evolution of the discourse of the user. The investigation into collective struc-
tures launched by the Smithsons with their Golden Lane competition project
almost a decade earlier, found its heroic –if distorted- incarnation in the
Park Hill Housing Estate, finished that year in city of Sheffield. Although
Park Hill had been designed during the late 1950’s it already incorporated
space standards similar to those that were promoted by the Parker Mor-
ris Report, also published in 1961. But a different conception of the user
started to gain momentum around this time with the first Dutch publication
of John Habraken’s De Dragers en de Mensen –translated into English as
Supports (1972), and later into Italian (1974), Spanish (1975), and German
(2001), among other languages. Although, as acknowledged by its author,
68.  The idea of the adaptable house is heralded in the report as “one of the most important lines of
future research into the development of design and structure”, op. cit: 9.
 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

the original Dutch version avoids the term user, Supports advocates for an
open-ended approach to mass housing in which the notion implicitly begets
a whole new set of connotations related to political self-determination and
aesthetic selfexpression.69 For, while the Parker Morris Report –where the
term user was similarly absent- had been explicit in stating new conditions
for dwellings in a context of greater affluence, it seemed that the identity of
the housing recipients had remained blurry. But, how could it be otherwise?
Given that the separation between client and occupant demanded that gen-
eral guidelines for housing were devised, then individual identities had to be
somehow abstracted into universal “needs”. In reality, the adoption of the
term “user” in the 1960’s might well designate something rather different
from what it seemed to imply at first. Because if usage referred, as it did in
principle, to an instrumental, non-affective relation to an object or work, its
application raised the implicit possibility that such usage be understood not Above: Cover of the first edition of John
Habraken’s De Dragers en de Mensen,
just as a function of objective “needs” but in terms akin to those imposed on later translated as Supports (1961).

by a client, that is, someone endowed with both power and “aspirations”.
It was only a matter of changing the sign of the definition (from objective
needs to subjective aspirations) for a fundamental critique of the passive,
objectifying idea of the user to be raised. This is, in fact, the double-edged
quality thanks to which the term user came to be seen by many authors as
potent, despite its initial associations. Adrian Forty, for instance, points to-
ward this emancipatory sense of the term in the writings of Dutch architect
Herman Hertzberger, and of French sociologist Henri Lefebvre. 70 It is only
through usage –and potential for deliberate misuse-, these authors claim,
that space may be appropriated and brought into the realm of subjective and
social production.71 Forty explains that the adoption of the term user during
the 1960’s, over and above competing terms such as occupant, inhabitant, or
tenant, satisfied three important conditions. First, it offered architecture a
source of indeterminacy. By involving itself with a complex, evolving primary
material to be investigated, architecture could be liberated from pre-existing
functionalist formulae.72 Even as Parker Morris suggested, this investigation
was poised to become a source of innovation for the discipline. Secondly,
research of user’s needs increased the potential for a greater relevance and
“fitness” of a given architectural proposition. Third, and most crucially, Forty
argues that in the context of a welfare state system of production, the user
functioned as an alibi that allowed architecture to infiltrate, and to thrive
Above: Harold MacMillan on the cover of
Tima Magazine, October 1959.
69.  John Habraken, Supports. An Alternative to Mass Housing. Edited by Jonathan Teicher. (Urban
International Press, UK: 1999. Second English edition [First English edition: London, Architectural
Press, 1972]). The book has been interpreted as a critique of Gropius’ scope of total architecture, and
more generally to the concept of gesamtkunstwerk or total work of art. Joaquín Medina-Warmburg,
in conversation (29/12/2012).

70.  See the entry “User” in Adrian Forty, Words and Buildings. A Vocabulary of Modern
Architecture. (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2000): 312-317.

71.  For a review of Lefebvre’s critique of the theory of needs as a basis for design, and of his
appropriation of the concept of the user, see: Lukasz Stanek, Henri Lefebvre on Space. Architecture,
Urban Research, and the Production of Theory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011).

72.  Henry Swain, “Building for People”, Journal of the RIBA Vol. 68 (11/1961): 508-510.

73
 within the conditions of production imposed by the Keynesian economic
regime. Indeed, he claims that “the user and the extensive analysis of user’s
needs, allowed architects to believe that notwithstanding their employment
by ministries and government, the people whom they truly served were the
occupants of the buildings. By privileging ‘the user’, it could be claimed the
expectations within a welfare state democracy for the disempowered to be
treated as citizens of ‘equal social worth’ was being realized”. 73

Thus, for architecture the user functioned as a vehicle that allowed it to

define its engagement with the state and with society as a whole, not just
in instrumental, but in cultural terms. By appropriating the figure of the
user within its discourse, architecture was able to assert itself as a critical
voice vis-à-vis an increasingly contested checkerboard of political power.
Furthermore, the inclusion of the figure of the “anonymous client” within
the architectural equation renewed the internal tensions of the discipline
by configuring a new problem: How to create an organization and an image
in which the individual can find an affirmation of him or herself within the
collective? 74

Even if this problem had been announced earlier during the 20 th century –
most famously, in Le Corbusier’s viaduct in the Plan Obus- it had been often
eclipsed by issues such as standardization of production or the metaphysics
of material assembly. In contradistinction to that moment, the 1960’s made
it seem clear that a viable theory of architectural design could not be based
on a theory of needs, even if such theory contemplated -as did Abraham
Maslow’s influential “hierarchy”- spiritual and psycho-social dimensions.
The notion of the user had to be reframed beyond the passive understand-
ing of the receiver, and in terms that exceeded any merely instrumental
conception of architectural space. The proper (i.e.: affective) expression of
the structures of culture and society would become the primary concern for
a socially relevant architecture.

1.3. From the Health of Man to the Life of the Collective

If, as Siegfried Kracauer suggested, the individual’s irreducible complexity and
the idea of a heterogeneous collective are inextricably linked, there were also
inherent tensions within that relationship –tensions that had to be resolved
conceptually and symbolically. Those tensions arose from the need to contain
the individual’s complexity for the sake of order and regularity at the level of
the collective; if the individual’s complexity would have been absolute then
no pattern would have been possible within the collective organization (and
this was indeed a possibility entertained by certain architects with anarchistic
tendencies). On a discursive level, the idea of the user provided a flexible

73.  Adrian Forty, Op. Cit., 314.

74.  See: Jacob B. Bakema, “Bouwen voor de anonieme opdrachtgever”, Forum 2 (1962): 41-44.

(Trans: Building for the Anonymous Client).

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 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

“middle ground” between the extremes of utter regularity and maximum dif-
ferentiation. For those who viewed the imposition of regularity as repressive,
the recourse to the user would provide a safeguard against homogenization.
Yet, a conceptual revolution would be necessary in order to allow the emer-
gence of this new configuration of the individual. The abandonment of the
subject of modern architecture as defined by the orthodoxy of CIAM and the
Bauhaus depended on the development of a new epistemology of man and
of its relationship to habitat. In all of its systemic complexity, the notion of
habitat came gradually to replace the predominance of space as the locus of
architectural and urban agency.75 But, who is, after all, the man that leaves
the stage in the wake of WWII, and who the (neo) human that enters it sur-
reptitiously? By what mechanisms are each of them related to the notion of
the collective? To answer this question it is necessary to investigate discus-
sions taking place during the 1940’s in architecture, as well as in the social
sciences and philosophy. A point of departure is the assumption that the focus
of attention of disciplinary discourse will shift from a predominant interest
in the health of the body –as attested to by the involvement of architecture
with medical knowledge-, into an increasingly scientific exploration of the
life of the mind, and from there into the investigation of the collective as a
complex, intangible fabric. That is to say, from a consideration of subjectivity
as bi-univocally integrated with the physical body, to its conceptualization
as the expression of a multiplicity of intangible forces that pass through the
body, yet do not necessarily originate or end in it. This is, in fact, what the
incorporation of a broad range of discourses including the social sciences,
linguistics, psychoanalysis, and cybernetics was suggesting: that the human
body no longer stood for the possibility of a fundamental unity of the subject
of architecture. This is of critical importance, as its impact on the western
understanding of architecture as a symbolic identification between human
body and building would be shaken and disfigured beyond reconstruction.
Le Corbusier’s attempt, during the 1950’s, to re-establish this identification
by introducing the universal measuring system known as The Modulor, is
perhaps the clearest evidence of that loss of unity.

Looking Back at the Vanguard

An understanding of the conceptual network in which the user unfolds as
an architectural discourse requires to further develop the already hinted at
characterization of the subject of early modernism, so that, by contrast, the
new challenges brought about by the end of the Second World War may be
thrown into higher relief.

75.  This can be seen in Le Corbusier’s own ambiguity as he forwarded the cause of “space” as a
unifying concept for the three arts of painting, sculpture and architecture, while promoting the shift
from urbanism to habitat as the central agenda within CIAM. See: Le Corbusier, “Ineffable Space”
in Architecture Culture. 1943-1968. A Documentary Anthology, edited by Joan Ockmann (New
York: Rizzoli, 1993). Published as “L’Espace Indicible”, in L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, out of series
number “Art”, Jan. 1946: 9-10.

75
Right: Hannes Meyer, Co-op Zimmer
(1926), source: Michael Hays,
Modernism and the Post-humanist
Subject (1992).

As outlined in the first section of this chapter, the irruption of 20 th century

modernism cannot be reduced to the production of a single new image of the
architectural subject. Although this is no place to develop a comprehensive
analysis of such representations, one may simply evoke the confrontations
within CIAM and the Bauhaus, between the humanist positions of Sigfried
Giedion, José Luis Sert, and Le Corbusier, and the post-humanist (according
to Michael Hays) inclinations of Hannes Meyer and Ludwig Hilberseimer.
Or, within the former, the universalist, doctrinaire stance championed by
Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius, versus the specific and site-sensitive
propositions of the so-called “alternative tradition”, represented by German
architects like Erich Mendelsohn and Hans Scharoun.76 Notwithstanding
that diversity, the recent cultural critique of modernism has been capable of
grouping many of those expressions under a common roof frequently labeled
functionalism, which is in turn inscribed within the framework of positivist
philosophy. Iñaki Ábalos’ The Good Life –a study of the individual house as
an expression of 20th century lifestyles and subjectivities- stands out as one
such effort. Through its seven chapters, The Good Life mocks the morally
conscientious endeavors of architecture in a search for the cultural sediments
of our twenty first century idea of living.77 Instead of a disciplinary narrative,
it proposes a “guided visit” as an excavation of a collective unconscious -a
museum of the domestic imagination- where historical fragments lie scattered
on a field best walked through at leisure -that field is the present.

Out of two pre WWII case-studies, Ábalos discusses the vanguard house. The
positivist house is represented by the home of the Arpel family in Jacques

76.  See: Peter Blundell Jones, Patrick Hodgkinson, Colin St. John Wilson and Matthew Wells, Hans
Scharoun. The Alternative Tradition. Ten Projects (A3 Times, 1995).

77.  Iñaki Ábalos, The Good Life. A Guided Visit to the Houses of Modernity (Barcelona: Gustavo
Gili, 2001). Published originally in Spanish as La Buena Vida. Una Visita Guiada a la Casas de la
Modernidad. (Barcelona, 2001).

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 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

Tati’s film Mon Oncle (1957). The house is cast as the epitome of modernist
rationalization’s consequences for domestic life. While the every other house
studied by Ábalos in his book is regarded as having some positive ascendancy
on the present, the positivist house is deemed an irremediably exhausted
model. It is the primary expression of a flat and morally bankrupt regime
(a view in itself not entirely devoid of moralistic overtones). But beyond the
openly postmodernist bias of the narrative, the world of references sum-

Left: House of the Arpels in Jacques

Tati’s film Mon Oncle (1958)

moned by his description provides valuable elements to outline some of the

features of the subject dreamed up by modern architecture.78 It must be first
stressed that, in Ábalos’ account, this subject is by no means a mere “user”
of the modern house, for his identification with architecture goes far beyond
the instrumental. This individual does not have a practical relationship with
architecture –even though this architecture claims to be serving practical
purposes above all-; he (for he is invariably male) fully enjoys and aspires to
it, even if, as with the Arpels, the justifications given for this affection rely
mostly on the functional advantages of the house. The fact is, nonetheless,
that this is not just a militant subject who wants to overturn the lifestyles

78.  Ábalos makes no effort to hide his contempt for the early European avant-garde, which he
renders as a failed attempt to deliver on its collectivist, utopian promises. American culture is, on
the other hand, praised for its ability to foster a successful pragmatism both in philosophy and in
architecture. This view might be opposed to Rem Koolhaas’s more nuanced rendering of North
American modernism not as merely efficacious and down-to-earth, but as a conflation of pragmatism
and surrealism, so radical in its ambitions that its goals could never be openly stated.

77
 of a Victorian-era morality or of unhealthy industrial neighborhoods; it is
also a hedonistic subject that, aided by technology, wants to appropriate and
enjoy the new experiences of modern life: high speed, artificial environments,
altitude, flight, the moving image, etc. The origin of this modern subject is
based on the Cartesian constitution of a knowing self, and in Auguste Comte’s
doctrine that “all phenomena are subject to invariable natural laws”. In the
20th century, this modern subject is “none other than Le Corbusier’s average
human being, the statistical family, a mental construct which enabled ortho-
dox architects to objectivize social behavior and quantify it during that almost
unhinged experiment, the Existenzminimum”. In response to it, “[Team 10]
architects were attacking the positivist reductionism that hovered above and
permeated modern architecture at all levels”.79 By contrast to the positivist
house’s hysterical celebration of efficiency and progress, Mies van der Rohe’s
radical renunciation of the standard family in his patio-houses (1931-1934)
is offered as an alternative. While the mysterious inhabitant of Mies’ houses
is possibly a loner, a couple (¿heterosexual?), or a bachelor whose secluded
lifestyle might easily accommodate a plethora of promiscuities, the idea of
man sanctioned in the 1930’s by The Athens Charter belongs in a family like
the Arpels, “a married couple to be exact, with a strictly Calvinist morality… a
family that has no special features; difference as a form of meaning has been
erased; it forms part of a gigantic social whole”.80 Furthermore, this individual
exists in a quantitative space that has been deprived of affective dimensions;
“space barely exists as such: it will be understood as the Cartesian res extensa
in which the visibility of an egalitarian, efficient, healthy, hard-working family
unfolds … it will be medicalized, hygienic, a disinfected space dependent of
transparency, sunlight and cleanliness”.81

Bio-medical and Socio-medical approaches to man

With hardly concealed ambiguity, Ábalos draws much from the ideas set forth
by Le Corbusier, either in the context of CIAM, where he and Giedion held
a decisive influence, or in his own writings. Since the initiation of the CIAM
experience in 1928 the pursuit of modern architecture and urbanism had been
defined as an attempt to put architecture back at the service of man. As reflected
in the concerns of its first few meetings, and even earlier, modern architecture
was not to be understood as a new style (at least until it was branded as such
in its North-American appropriation) but as the incarnation of a new spirit.
During the 1920’s Le Corbusier would define this spirit by differentiating man
from “the donkey”; the trajectory of man being represented by the straight line,
the goal-oriented action, the donkey by the meandering, hesitant geometries
of a local interest deprived of strategy and clearsightedness.82 It is mostly this

79. Ábalos, Op. Cit. 72.

80. Ábalos, Op. Cit. 69-71.

81. Ábalos, Op. Cit. 75.

82.  See: Le Corbusier, Urbanisme, preface by Jean Cassou (Paris: Éditions Vicent, Fréal & Cie.,
1966). Originally published in 1924.

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 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

period of strict verticality and orthogonal planning, of which the Cartesian

skyscraper emerges as a paradigmatic building type, that Ábalos identifies as
the founding moment of the positivist architectural subject: the dismissal of
the thing-in-itself and its replacement by a fully instrumentalized architec-
ture. During the 1930’s Le Corbusier’s thinking would become much more
nuanced, as proven by his simultaneous endorsement of rigid principles of
the Athens Charter and his sudden interest in the organic forms of landscape
and vernacular materials –probably a consequence of the encounter with
the American continent.83 Through his contributions to the second and third
CIAM congresses, however, Le Corbusier makes key statements with regards
to the relationship between man, housing, and the city. Once the “inhuman
character of cities” had been established, the task of CIAM would consist in
defining new conditions for a humane environment. Such endeavor first im-
Above: Poster announcing the exhibition
plied the investigation of The Minimal Dwelling (CIAM II, Frankfurt 1929), on the Dwelling for Existenzminimum,
on the occasion of the second meeting of
where Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret made a claim for “standardization, CIAM in Frankfurt in 1929.
industrialization and taylorization” of housing, and defined domestic life as
consisting “in a series of precise functions… to breathe, to see and to hear”.84
Above all, the goal of a proper house was to provide a healthy, human scaled,
environment for the nuclear family; one that would replace the insalubrious,
crammed accommodations inherited from the 19th century. Indeed, as proved
by Beatriz Colomina, medical knowledge and its representations of man were
one of the most pervasive influences on the early 20th century architectural
avant-garde’s imagination, underpinning not only its moral and scientific cru-
sade against ill-health, but also its appropriation of the trope of transparency
from radical new technologies such as x-ray imaging. “Modern architecture was
unproblematically understood as a kind of medical equipment, a mechanism
for protecting and enhancing the body”, a feat that Le Corbusier himself would
translate into his five points (pilotis: raise the building from the “wet, humid,
ground”; roof gardens: expose the body to the healing effects of sunlight), and
apply in his canonical houses of the 1920’s.85 In Towards a New Architecture,
and Urbanisme, Le Corbusier furthered this position, stating that “the machine
that we live in is an old coach full of tuberculosis”.

83.  As Le Corbusier himself tells us, Precisions on the Present State of Architecture and City
Planning was written on the return voyage from his South American tour of 1929, where he visited
cities in Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil. He seems to have been highly stricken by the
forms of the South American landscape, both as seen from the deck of the ocean liner Lutetia, and
as they appeared from the airplane window that flew him to Paraguay. In the flatness of Uruguayan,
Argentinian and Paraguayan geographies, the meandering forms that only a few years earlier had
seemed no more than the formal expression of a mindless creature, now took on a whole new
rationality and expressive value. His curvilinear sketches and plans for Rio de Janeiro and Argel
seem to have been influenced by a sensuous new approach inspired by the wildness and vastness of
South America. A study of this trip is available in Jorge Francisco Liernur with Pablo Pschepiurca,
La Red Austral. Obras y Proyectos de Le Corbusier y sus Discípulos en la Argentina (1924-1965)
(Bernal: Universidad Nacional de Quilmes y Prometeo 3010, 2008).

84.  See: Mary MacLeod, “Architecture or Revolution: Taylorism, Technocracy and Social Change”,
Art Journal Vol. 43 No. 2 (Summer 1983): 132-147.

85.  See: Beatriz Colomina, “The Medical Body in Modern Architecture”, in Cynthia C. Davison (ed.),
Anybody (New York: Anyone Corporation, 1997): 228-238.

79
 Further activities within CIAM collaborated in defining a precise picture
of the inhabitant of the ideal modern city. The Brussels congress in 1930
focused on the partitioning of the ground plane. Here questions dealt with
density of inhabitation and the advantages and disadvantages of living at a
remove from the level of nature and circulation –as discussed, for example
by Walter Gropius- or with the validity of the English Garden City, as a way
to “release men from the inhumanity of the modern city” (L.C), a model that
was found inadequate by Le Corbusier due to its focus on the individual
house as the primary means of accommodation. In 1933, the fourth meeting
of CIAM aboard the ship Patris sailing from Athens to Marseille gave rise to
the (in) famous Athens Charter, which summarized CIAM’s mechanist view
of the city as a functional artifact at the service of men. Characterized by its
persistent emphasis on classification and segregation of functions and traf-
fic, its advocacy for a healthy and hygienic living environment, its dogmatic
helio-thermic axis of organization, its polemical condemnation of historical
districts, and its top-down, technocratic principles of urban management, the
Charter was published anonymously by Le Corbusier during the occupation
of France only in 1942, yet it almost immediately became the embodiment
of the modernist urban utopia.

Right: Le Corbusier, portrait of his

father, Georges Edouard Jeanneret on
his deathbed. Source: Nicholas Fox
Weber, Le Corbusier. A Life (2008).

Paradoxically, by the time of its publication, the effect of the war had made
itself felt within architectural thinking. In fact, as Le Corbusier acknowledged,
by 1943 the perception was held that the tide of events was turning, and that
plans for reconstruction had to be expedited. 86 In preparing such plans he

86.  He wrote: “1943 –a year with nothing special about it, situated perhaps at the point of inflection
between the sum of the errors made, and the dawn of a new start”, in Looking at City Planning,
trans. Eleanor Levieux (New York: Orion Press, 1971): 1. Published originally as Manière de Penser
l’Urbanisme. (Boulogne, 1946). This book also includes Le Corbusier’s first documented application

80
 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

had already published Sur les 4 Routes, and would later write, with François
de Pierrefeu, La Maison des Hommes (The Home of Man), and Manière de
Penser l’Urbanisme (Looking at City Planning).87 Of strongly didactic char-
acter, The Home of Man is of special interest since it recapitulates and adapts
the main theses of the Athens Charter to the specific context of (envisioned)
postwar France. Chapter II, “For Whom to Build?” explains Le Corbusier
and de Pierrefeu’s understanding of the subject of their architectural and
urban ideas. As illustrated by Le Corbusier’s sketches for the book, these
are families living in conditions deemed unhealthy from a biological as well
as from a social point of view. Sunlight and ventilation are insufficient, and
tugurization and promiscuity result from improper organization and lack
of privacy. This in turn, is the consequence of the game of speculation –a
game deplored by the book as the expression of rampant consumerism. By
contrast, the authors claim that “the city is made for the liberation of the
human person, in view of its realization”, and, later, that “the principle of
a correct habitat cannot be other than this: to seek the creation of human
terrains that are healthy, resistant, and naturally immunized”. 88

Worth noticing is that, even though Le Corbusier was a skillful portraitist, his
representations of the people for whom the new architecture was designed
are diagrammatic. If the personal traits of the future inhabitants were un-
known, no effort of the imagination seems to have been made by Le Corbusier
that might have challenged or expanded his own conception of what proper
physiological and sociological standards could amount to. On the contrary,
his investigation into the ideality of the human being would continue to be
refined until its culmination in The Modulor, a universal system of measure-
ments based on the human body, a would-be “Latin of construction” that
had been developed since 1943 until its publication in 1950. This reveals Le
Corbusier’s conviction that a humanist modern architecture had to be guided
toward greater embodiment.

On the basis of Le Corbusier’s publications of the decades of 1920, 1930 and

early 1940, it is possible to see evidence substantiating Iñaki Ábalos’ claim
that the subject of what he terms positivist architecture was a vaguely defined
rational creature that had nonetheless to be rescued from the claws of social
malaise, bodily illness, and moral decay. Architecture was poised to perform
that transformation, leading man to its realization.

Yet, Le Corbusier’s thinking during the 1940s already contained hints of a

series new problems and directions that would emerge with full force within
architectural culture after the war, thus complicating Ábalos’ somewhat
schematic outline. Aside from references centered around the body and its
Above: Cover and conceptual diagrams
illustrating the concepts of the unviersal
of the term user in French (usager). man. Source: Le Corbusier and Francois
de Pierrefeu, La Maison des Hommes
87.  Sur les 4 Routes (Paris: Gallimard, 1941). This book was written between 1939 and 1941. La (1942).
Maison des Hommes (Paris: Librarie Plon, 1942).

88.  “La Cité est faite pour la libération de la personne humaine en vue de son accomplissement”.
Italics in the original. Op. Cit. 20.

81
 attributes, such as human scale, already present in Urbanisme, and human
proportions, new catchwords are presented which will become central to the
debates of the following two decades: the idea of the Heart of the City –de-
scribed first in The Home of Man- seen as a new site of political representation
instead of a merely administrative center, or Cité des Affaires, and the notion
of Habitat, as an overarching concept capable of framing the relationship
between man and environment in a holistic way; one potentially able to re-
place the analytic segregation of functions proposed by the Athens Charter.

Reverberations in mid-century CIAM

“Life falls through the net of the four functions”

Team 10, 1953

Such return to an organic conception of the city, a holistic view of the envi-
ronment, and an ensuing humanistic approach to architecture, wherein the
notions of human measure and scale would become central, can be traced
later within the discussions that led from the dissolution of CIAM to the
consolidation of Team 10, the group of avant-garde architects that would
pick up and transform the work of CIAM in the postwar arena.

Already at the seventh meeting of CIAM, held in Bergamo in 1949, the per-
ception had been held that a new agenda for the renewal of the organization
was needed, which Le Corbusier himself had proposed to articulate around
the notion of Habitat. The idea was postponed, however, as conversations
focused on setting the main theme for CIAM 8 eventually converged on the
issue of “civic centers”. Finally titled “The Heart of the City“, CIAM 8 turned
out to be the most significant of post war congresses. 89 It was organized by
the British group MARS and took place in the village of Hoddesdon, north
of London, in July 1951.90 In acknowledging a positive inheritance from the
past -presentations were peppered with illustrative references to European
historic centers-, and in shifting its operative mode of analysis of the city
from a conception guided by production to a discussion of the importance of
urban public space, “sense of community”, humanization, suburbanization,
etc., CIAM 8 marked the beginning of a significant redefinition of the ideals
of modern architecture. The organic, even romantic, image of the city, as
having a “heart” replaced a clinical approach that had emerged in response
to prior issues of overcrowding and environmental degradation. 91
But “the

89.     . See: Eric Mumford, The CIAM Discourse on Urbanism, 1928-1960 (Cambridge, MA and
London, England: MIT Press, 2000): 215. This paragraph is based on Mumford’s research, as well
Annie Pedret’s “CIAM IX: Discussing the Charter of Habitat”, in www.Team10online.org

90.     . Ernesto Nathan Rogers, Jose Luis Sert and Jacqueline Tyrwhitt (Eds.), The Heart of the City:
CIAM 8. Towards the Humanization of Urban Life (Humphries, 1952).

91.     . Discussions on the title to be adopted for the congress leant initially toward the term “core”,
as proposed by MARS. However, this was seen as “not the happiest term” by Sert, Giedion and
Tyrwhitt. “Heart” was finally adopted because it evoked a “sense of community”. See Eric Mumford,
Op. Cit. 202.

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 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

heart” was not just adopted for its semantic implications. Its “functional”
importance was also considered as when Sert suggested that the core works
as congregation place for the masses –to listen to radio or watch television
screens, also to consolidate direct contact and discussion circumventing
possible information manipulation.92 Furthermore, general consensus was
that the core of the city had to jettison mechanical transportation, giving
primacy to the pedestrian –the human/machine relationship being recast
as a conflict out of which humans needed to emerge victorious. Likewise,
the contribution by the English group MARS was significant in its proposi-
tion of scale as the instrument of analysis that replaced function–an idea
that predated Alison and Peter Smithson’s notion of scales of association,
setting the scene for a return to an anthropocentric framework via emphasis
on human scale. The impact of this concept was reflected by the adoption
of a new grid that set a standard format of presentation and discussion for
architectural and urban works. As demonstrated Barry Curtis, however, CIAM
8 exposed a deep rift between the humanist conceptions brought to the table
by the older guard in their attempt to apply a fix to the inherited ideologies
of interwar modernism, and the emerging preoccupations of the younger
groups of architects attending the meeting. Immersed in a culture already
aware of the idealizations of humanism and its figures (“universal man”),
the latter felt compelled to counter “the centrality of ‘man’… with a shift in
attention to family and kinship and to exemplars drawing from architecture
without architects, nomads, space travel and even Las Vegas”. 93

However, the conceptual field of postwar architecture theory in which the

user would soon emerge as a dominating category would not have come to
fruition if Le Corbusier’s intuition on the exhaustion of the Athens Charter
had not taken hold. His proposal to rethink the agenda of CIAM around
the idea of Habitat found fertile ground, finally, as preparations for CIAM
9 began. This involved an implicit recognition that the term urbanism was
no longer able to convey a sense of the totality of human relations as was
becoming evidently necessary.94

Legacy: Sigfried Giedion and the ideology of man

Having read Ernst Cassirer’s Essay on Man, Sigfried Giedion declared in 1952
that “the endeavor to reestablish an equipoise between the individual and the

92.     . Mumford, Op. Cit. 206.

93.      See: Barry Curtis, “The Heart of the City”, in Jonathan Hughes and Simon Sadler (Eds.), Non-
Plan. Essays on Freedom, Participation and Change in Modern Architecture and Urbanism (Oxford:
Architectural Press, 2000): 52-64.

94.     . Eric Mumford quotes a letter sent by Jacqueline Tyrwhitt to J. L. Sert after a meeting of the
CIAM Council in Paris in 1952, where she relays Le Corbusier’s post-war doubts about the validity
of the Athens Charter: “Corbu said also in the Council meeting that he no longer felt we could
be confident about the way men should live in this changing world. He no longer felt he himself
knew what ‘a town’ should be. The ‘Habitat’ is clearly an element of living space –Corbu is not sure
‘urbanisme’ is the correct word- but how it should be organized with the other elements is less and
less clear”. See Mumford, Op. Cit., 218 n. 80.

83
 collective sphere is proceeding today throughout the world”95. Giedion stated
that during the first half of the twentieth century, modernism had conceived
of the individual in purely universal terms, and of the collective as a simple
multiplication of it. Thus, he argued, the most relevant architectural experiment
of the modern movement had been the private space of the house; collective
architecture had been reduced to a mechanistic proliferation of the principles
of a universal individual or cell. The idea of the collective had been severed
from the embodied man, curtailing the possibility of a “humanization of ur-
ban life”. He proposed that z second phase of modern architecture involved
a fundamental need to refocus attention on the “embodied individual” and
its relation to the city and the community -from whence he titled his 1958
collection of essays “Architecture, You and Me”.

Giedion’s declarations prove that when the idea of the human as the subject
of architecture was re-introduced toward the end of the war, it came under
a very different guise. As portrayed by his writings, the subject of modern
architecture had experienced a radical upgrading: it could no longer be thought
of in abstract, generic terms. Paradoxically, the initial reaction to this was the
development of an increasingly sophisticated web of scientific concepts and
practices. From philosophy and anthropology, to sociology, proxemics, and
psychology, these efforts attempted to capture the complexity of the human
and to restore the sense of uniqueness to the notion of the individual. This
meant that further generalizations were necessary in order to set the terms
under which the differences that made up “actual persons” were possible. 96

The user as process or endgame

But if during the first decade after WWII there existed a growing consen-
sus around the need for identification and personalization, the attitudes
regarding how to fulfill those needs began to diverge already in the early
1960’s. As will be explored in the chapters 2 and 3, a number of architects
proposed that architecture had become a tool of class domination; moreover,
this could only be overcome by a renunciation to the idea of representation
and its replacement by forms of direct participation. At the other end of the
spectrum, the members of Team 10, beyond their internal disagreements and
their criticism of the heroic generation that had established itself during the
interwar period, held a pragmatic stance. The issue at stake was none other
than the role of architects and architecture within capitalist society. In this
sense, Team 10 held a comparatively moderate, if not conservative, view
that expressed itself in their advocacy of “a utopia of the present”. This view

95.  Sigfried Giedion, “The Humanisation of Urban Life”, in Architecture, You and Me (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1958):126. A short version had been published in Das Werk no. 11
(1952).

96.  Recent studies by Miles Glendinning and Stephan Muthesius and by W. Brian Newsome have
shown that the discourses of user autonomy, particularly in Great Britain and France, emerged from
within the spheres of technical and administrative bodies, and were later picked up by community
leaders and political agitators.

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 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

amounted to conceptualizing the role of the architect as that of a purveyor

of a certain type of physical products within the conditions and limitations
imposed on them by the contingencies of their time. They championed a
reformist attitude toward the ethics of the modern movement, seeking to
redress its faults through an updated conceptual framework, and, in some
cases, a greater political awareness. Their attitude revealed the conviction
that the architectural discipline was as a viable means to intervene and rec-
tify the inadequacies brought about modernization. The processes involved
in such interventions were important, but only inasmuch as they remained
subservient to the goals the resulting object was supposed to achieve. The
emphasis continued to be placed on the coherent organization of the object,
both internally and externally, even if some of its members like Ralph Ers-
kine and Giancarlo De Carlo advocated the idea of direct participation. On
the other hand, the radicals placed a decisive importance on open-ended
process. Here we may discover various approaches and attitudes, yet the
theme that emancipatory power lay within the methods and processes of
production remained a constant. Almost invariably, these architects stressed
the importance of the means to arrive at a legitimate project, over the abil-
ity of any particular formal principle to yield meaningful results. As will be
discussed further in chapter 3, Christopher Alexander would sow the initial
theoretical seeds for this approach in his 1964 iconoclastic suggestion that
form had to be guided by a principle of efficiency (or good fit), an amplified
form of functionalist thinking. Later, this proposition would develop into at-
tempts to provide users with a means to circumvent the agency of architects
altogether. This was the case, for example, with the work of Nicholas Negro-
ponte’s Architecture Machines, and of Yona Friedman, who was tempted “to
remove the middleman between a users’ needs and their resolution in the
built environment” by formulating a precise technical framework that allowed
participatory action to unfold, “without any commitment to physical form”.
Earlier, in 1961, John Habraken had published his essay Supports, where
the figure of the user had been elevated to a protagonist role. Even if more
moderate in its invective against the institution of architecture, Habraken’s
thesis, too, underscored the importance of process. He asked, “Could it be
that the housing shortage, or rather, its apparent insolubility, is caused by
the antithesis between man and method?”

In the contrast between the pragmatic, goal-oriented attitude of Team 10 and

the utopian, process-based proposals of the radicals, a clear divide can be
traced.97 It defines the opposing camps of those who see the embodiment of
the user as a futile or impossible effort -and therefore call for the reduction or
downright elimination of architecture’s involvement with housing-, and those
who choose to accept it as a way to challenge existing architectural tropes and
habits. The former saw the idea of heterogeneity as having no determinable
formal content; the latter sought a viable physical expression for it. Team

97.  The term utopian is used here in the sense that their proposals could hardly function within the
existing conditions of production.

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 10’s position thus carried a number of implications that could inductively
by listed as follows: 1) the need to establish a systematic rationale for formal
variation based on repetition, as a response to the emerging perceptions of
social heterogeneity; 2) the definition of new modes of relationship between
program and appearance, granting the building façade a greater autonomy
than it had been allowed during the interwar period (different from ideas
of regulating lines, or tectonic expression); 3) the further development and
radicalization of the concept of the free-plan, establishing a three dimensional
independence of structure and enclosure from which emerged concepts such
as plug-in, clip on, support structures, mega-structures, capsules, etc.; 4)
the emergence of notions of trans-scalar, meta programmatic organization,
such as the Smithsons’ idea of “association”; 5) the growing urbanization
of collective residential architecture, not only through the incorporation of
more varied programs, but through the hybridization of public and private
domains via elevated access deck; 6) the reappearance of a preoccupation with
typology, as an architectural episteme reliant on the continuity of historical
processes and programmatic indeterminacy.

Doubtlessly, these loose premises never made it into a systematic doctrine.

They were developed and tested empirically through commissions, competi-
tions, discussions in meetings, and publications. The radicals, on the contrary,
had a tendency to operate within academic milieus where systematicity and
theoretical articulation was not just encouraged but unavoidable. In any
case, the dialectic thereby established between open-endedness and formal
determinacy would presage and frame the debates on complexity and het-
erogeneity in architecture that would ensue over the coming decades.

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 2. The Quest for Heterogeneity:
Towards a Molecular Conception of the Collective (1945-1960)
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“You may ask what are the characteristics of the New Modern Architecture in
Europe? It is pragmatic -its basis is a sort of socio-plastics- rather than old-
style rational -i.e.: diagrammatic with right angles”.
Peter Smithson, 1957.1

2.1 Heterogeneity as a Modern Concept

A Conceptual Bridge
Each era places its practical expectations on architecture, but it also demands
that its main cultural themes be given an adequate formal expression –and
our present time constitutes no exception with respect to such requirements.
Mediation and language, circulation and flows, as well as ecological concerns,
national security and multiculturalism, have been some of the tropes recently
elaborated in the figurative discourse of the discipline.

If we shift attention back toward the decade that followed WWII, architectural
ideologies appear to have been shaped by a much more ambiguous relation-
ship with modernization than in the previous years. On one hand, a clear
rejection of its -mainly European- excesses, on the other, a fascination with
the newly achieved successes -mainly North American- of its technological
and economic development. The fascination with productive efficiency, a cult
of the machine, and a future-oriented politics, that had characterized the first
decades of the twentieth century had been echoed in an architectural inves-
tigation of the building as an autonomous object.2 After WWII, however, the
focus of the disciplinary avant-garde begun to turn away from the object. As
evidenced by the creation of organizational tropes such as cluster, stem, web,
plug-in, clip-on, matt-building, support-structure, etc., architecture sought
to re-open itself to “the field”. 3 The human subject, the everyday, and the
vernacular became exemplars of architecture’s reappraisal of indeterminacy,
individuality, particularity and difference. In regards to housing production,
the task of architecture in the post-war world was seen increasingly to reside
in elucidating an expressive and organizational language, whereby a new
balance of individual identity and collective integration could be achieved
–a search that has extended into our present day through the challenges that
contemporary multi-cultural societies are posing to architects and urbanists.

1.    “Letter to America”, in Architectural Design (3/1958): 93-102.

2.   But there are exceptions. Mies van der Rohe’s studies for a brick country house (1923), as well
as his patio-house tapestry (1934-1938) are perhaps foremost examples. After WWII Le Corbusier
himself moved away from the self-contained object, most evidently in his project for the Venice
Hospital.

3.   According to the thesis forwards by John Habraken in “Palladio’s Children”, the modern process
of autonomization of architecture from the field (understood both literally and figuratively) began in
the middle of the XVIth century, when Andrea Palladio designed his famous villas for rich merchants
away from the medieval fabric of the city of Venice, in the Veneto region of Italy.

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 In what follows, we will elucidate a problem that has haunted architecture
since the middle of the twentieth century: the predicament of heterogeneity.
The case will be advanced that while heterogeneity has had a long concep-
tual trajectory of its own within modern culture, after the second world war
it took on a specific new function, becoming a powerful theoretical bridge
between social, urban and architectural affairs. In our analysis, evidence
will show how the case for heterogeneity was constructed from all sides, by
pitting it against dominant modernist tropes such as monotony, social decay,
mechanistic repetition, anomie, Taylorism, or mass production. It will also
emerge that the idea of heterogeneity functioned as one of the bridges span-
ning the historical rift of the 1960’s; an feat that, in order to be accomplished,
needed a new center of gravitation. Beyond expressing a solution to the new
responsibilities placed on architecture by the logic of the greatest number,4
the idea of the user became such new field of attraction, functioning as a
conduit for the development and legitimation of architecture’s foray into a
territory that would come to be know later as mass-personalization –post-
fordism avant-la-lettre.5

In order to unpack the various implications of heterogeneity during the

post-war decades, the following paragraphs return to the idea of a critical
shift in architectural culture taking place around 1960; a shift that reveals
a growing interest in the user as an individual, singular person–as opposed
to the predominant preoccupation with community during the previous
decade, or with mass society during the interwar period- and a parallel
reorientation of the architectural canon toward greater fragmentation and
formal complexity. While such architectural consequences should come as no
surprise –for, as Alison Smithson recounted in hindsight, Team 10 had been
held together by the aspiration “to respond to the complexity of society” 6- it
should be noted that the approximations to this issue by the group’s individual
members varied greatly. The nucleus of this chapter will be concerned with
analyzing diverging conceptions of formal complexity that emerged within
Team 10 during the 1950’s, as a response to this problematic: the pictur-

4.   In the 1940’s, Le Corbusier coined the expression Grandeur Conforme to refer to the quantitative
balance that would allow a housing unit to sustain its own collective functions –from whence he
derived the size of his Unité d’Habitation. In the early 1950’s the “quantitative problem” was picked
up by George Candilis, a former collaborator of Le Corbusier and newly arrived member of ATBAT
– Afrique, who would refer to L’Habitat pour le Plus Grand Nombre, or ‘Habitat for the Greatest
Number’. According to Alison Smithson, “Le Plus Grand Nombre is a phrase attributed to the paper
produced for the CIRPAC meeting at Sigtuna by André Wogensky”. See: Alison Smithson (ed.), Team
10 meetings 1954-1984 (New York: Rizzoli, 1991): 19 (n. 53); also Georges Candilis, “Habitat pour le
plus grand nombre, collectif horizontal, programme d’ étude du C.S.T.B. étude ATBAT”, Techniques
et Architecture (Nov. 1953), 8-15.

5.  This should be read in light of Gilles Deleuze’s assertion that “machines are social before being
technical”; in other words, that the capacity of industrial and digital processes to multiply difference
in response to local, individual, or other special circumstances is dependent on a diagram or social
dynamic, which pre-dates any technological expression. See: Gilles Deleuze, Foucault (London:
Continuum, 1999):34.

6.    Alison Smithson, “The Beginning of Team 10”, in Team 10 Meetings 1954-1984: 9.

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esque-empiricist sensibility (rooted in English and Swedish practices), the

systems-brutalist axis (English, French and Japanese), and the structuralist
experiment (mainly Dutch). This will be followed by a discussion of some
of the foremost contributions animating the wholesale critique of modern
design that emerged in early 1960’s. Notwithstanding their rejection of the
legacy of radical modernist doctrines, the first theoretical works of Dutch
architect John Habraken and of North-American journalist Jane Jacobs, both
published in 1961, manifest, at different scales, an interest in prolonging the
quest for heterogeneity initiated in the previous decade. This quest, however,
involved a much greater awareness of the needs, “wants” and opinions of the
individual users, as well as a generalized critique of the idea of “standard”.
Other foundational tenets of modernism that came also under attack during
the 1960’s will be addressed. The questioning of simplistic assumptions about
the relationship between design and behavior, and of formerly strict divisions
between producers and consumers (a dichotomy now seen to relegate users to
an overly passive stance in the production of habitat, from which they would
be relieved by their inclusion in planning, design and construction processes)
is emblematic of this new phase. Piggybacking on the shoulders of the user,
as the center of disciplinary attention, research into formal heterogeneity
was able to overcome the divide separating the modernist grounding of Team
10’s thinking, and the emerging historical territory of postmodernity. To this
we will come back in the following chapter.

The Functions of Difference

But, what is the precise meaning of heterogeneity? Is it possible to pin down
its specific implications in architecture, despite the blatant generality of
the term? This is not the place to undertake a thorough investigation of the
concept of heterogeneity -even though, to my knowledge, that task is yet
to be attempted- for its implications and ramifications are too pervasive
and far-reaching in our culture. Although the appearance of the term itself
in the English language was first documented in the seventeenth century,
its broader implications are lodged in the very origins of our philosophical
tradition. It is possible, notwithstanding, to identify some of the modern
discussions surrounding its use, for these have palpable bearings on the
problem of post-war planning and collective housing design.

As suggested by its etymology, the term relates to the idea of difference. But
difference -itself a contested and multivalent notion in modern thinking- can
be understood as a general term in regards to which heterogeneity should
be inscribed as a special case. Two early but telling instances of the modern
philosophical debate on difference are contained in the seventeenth and
eighteenth century attempts to reconcile the diversity of empirical reality
with the sphere of rationality and its pursuit of universality. In such con-
text, for example, must be understood the arguments raised by the German
philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716),
as he attempted to show the limitations of Cartesianism in explaining the

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 nature of qualitative difference.7 Among his many important contributions,
Leibniz’s greatest mathematical legacy was differential calculus, which con-
sists in the study of continuous variation and change. Calculus involves the
definition of concepts such as “critical points” as qualitatively different
moments (singularities) along a continuously varying function. The space
defined by a differential equation, regardless of its number of dimensions,
is continuous yet different from a homogenous Cartesian space. Thus, Leib-
nizian space became the mathematical basis as well as the main trope for
much of baroque architecture, painting and sculpture. 8 Towards the end of
the seventeenth century, the problem of homogeneity and heterogeneity
is treated by Immanuel Kant in his opus magnum, Critique of Pure Rea-
son (1781). In the chapter on Schematism, Kant confronts the problem of
bridging (i.e.: creating a homogeneous relation) between heterogeneous
terms.9 The terms of this relation are the universal concepts, which belong
to the subject’s faculty of understanding, and the multiplicity of empirical
phenomena. Kant achieves this connection through the introduction of an
important third term, the schema, which he defines as a procedural rule for
the production of images. The schema is, in Kant’s philosophy, a set of rules,
or prescriptions for representing a non-empirical concept; that is, for link-
ing it with sensed experience. 10 Thus, when Kant states the heterogeneity of
the concept and the manifold (or, more generally, of mind and matter), he
confirms the impression of Leibniz, in that it refers to entities or conditions
that are qualitatively distinct from each other.

In Leibniz and Kant we see announced a modern classification of differences

-between differences in kind, and differences in degree- that penetrates nine-

7.  Paul Lodge, “Leibniz’s Heterogeneity Argument Against the Cartesian Conception of Body”, Studia
Leibnitiana Vol. 30/1 (1998): 83-102. Lodge discusses Leibinitz’s text De Ipsa Natura [On Nature
Itself, published originally in 1698], proposing a novel interpretation of it.

8.  Gilles Deleuze’s reading of Leibniz as the philosopher of the baroque has now become canonical.
Deleuze proposes that “the fold” functions in Leibniz as a category of differentiation by means of
which it was possible to bridge the gap “between matter and soul”. Likewise, one should not forget
the relation between baroque architecture and mathematics in the work of Guarino Guarini, whose
design for the dome of Sacra Sindone [Holy Shroud] church in Torino, engaged the idea of an infinite
progression. His decomposition of the upper dome into progressively smaller triangles resonated
with Leibniz’s differential -a mathematical representation of the infinitely small. As Dalibor Vesely
points out, “the important step that Guarini takes is to contemplate approaching the problem of
infinity through the continuous progression of ratios in asymptotic approximation”. See: Dalibor
Vesely, Architecture in the Age of Divided Representation (MIT Press: London, 2004): 207-212.

9.   Immanuel Kant, “Of the Schematism of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding”, in Critique
of Pure Reason. First Edition (1781). Translated by F. Max Müller (New York: MacMillan,
1922):112-120 [pagination in the original German edition: 137-148]; “Appendix to the Trascedental
Dialectic”: 521-537 [o. p.: 648-669]. See also: Howard Caygill, A Kant Dictionary (Oxford: Blackwell
Publishing, 1995): 228-229.

10.  Martín Arias Albisu, “Una Relación de Homogeneidad entre Términos Heterogéneos. El Concepto
de Homogeneidad en el Capítulo del Esquematismo en la Crítica de la Razón Pura”, Diánoia Vol. 54,
No. 63 (11/2009): 71-88. Kant’s Schema is closely related to the concept of the diagram as developed
in 1960’s French philosophy, and in german and anglo-saxon architectural theory throughout the
XXth century. See: Sanford Kwinter, “The Hammer and the Song”, Oase no. 48 (1998): 31-43.

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teenth and twentieth century science and philosophy. That this classification
is essentially problematic will be expressed most clearly in the emerging sci-
ences of life and their attempt to provide an account of diversity in nature.
Although not referring specifically to heterogeneity -in The Origin of Spe-
cies (1859) he writes about phenomena of “variety and variation”- Charles
Darwin’s explanation of the natural world is inspired by its recognition. The
radicality of Darwin’s contribution to an understanding of variety in nature
lies in the abandonment of the previously idealist-finalist view which held
that each form, or species, corresponded to a specific function and that both
-function and form- had been divinely established. By contrast, the Theory
of Evolution was predicated (as had been, to some extent, Goethe’s earlier
explanation in Metamorphosis of Plants) on the introduction of notions of
chance, adaptation, and development over time. The variety of the natural
world was no longer the instantiation or representation of ideal figures, but
the result of permanent, ongoing change.

In later writings on evolutionary biology the term heterogeneity appears as

an explicit preoccupation. For example, D’Arcy Thompson uses it to charac-
terize the development of different kinds of organic tissues inside the cell in
his classic book On Growth and Form (1917). Further into the XXth century,
heterogeneity becomes an important notion in the field of ecology, where it
stands for a key measurable factor in the robustness of an ecosystem.

Yet, the notion of the heterogeneous becomes most relevant to our discus-
sion as it applies to the description of modern society, for the origin of the
isomorphisms and mechanisms of translation deployed in postwar housing
lies precisely there. This is why a great part of the polemics on the issue of
heterogeneity, mixture, or diversity in housing and in urbanism are indebted
to categories established within social science.

The evolution of modern social thought could be regarded as an effort to

define appropriate and truthful (i.e. having the most explanatory power)
criteria for conceptually organizing society into a shifting assemblage of
groups, classes and function-systems. Thus, while “class” is inherent to
western thinking since classical Greece, modernity established the idea of
conflict as its dominating and necessary dynamic, reaching its apex in Karl
Marx’s attempts to theorize class struggle -and, eventually, to eradicate it. 11
Explanations of heterogeneity will continue to remain at the center of interest
of social theory during the XIXth century. But is it only with the emergence of
Emile Durkheim’s sociological functionalism, at the turn of the XXth century,
that cognitive conditions will be ripe for a possible convergence of social and
architectural interests around the issue of heterogeneity. The main novelty
introduced by functionalist sociology with regards to the previous Marxist-
critical school lay in the fact that social difference (and, to some extent, the

11.  See: Theotonio Dos Santos, “The Concept of Social Classes,” Science and Society Vol. 34 No. 2
(1970): 166-193.

93
 conflicts raised by it) were no longer seen as a factor to be abolished, but
rather as a structural condition akin to what today might be called “sustain-
ability”. Functionalism’s further development by North American sociologist
Talcott Parsons (1902-1979) was greatly influential after WWII. Without it
being yet a postmodern critique, Parsons’ sociology expounded an organic
conception of the social system, the internal differentiation of which would
evolve as an adaptive process whose aim was to ensure a certain degree of
stability vis-a-vis environmental change. As a result of this conception -which
won Parsons an insistent host of accusations of conservatism and uncritical
acceptance of the post-war American society- the social system was rendered
in terms that resembled the more general class of a living system; in both,
the condition of heterogeneity acquired positive connotations. The idea of
social heterogeneity, as promoted by functionalism, became widely influential
on the development of the main debates of urban sociology. In particular, it
allowed the merging of politically reformist attitudes with a scientific model
of the workings of society, according to which heterogeneity would no longer
remain contingent to a given configuration of historical forces, but would
become a structural condition to be pursued and actively fostered.

2.2 Steps toward a Socio-plastics: Type, Program and

Expression in Le Corbusier’s Unité d’ Habitation
In mapping the trajectory of heterogeneity, it is important to refrain from
seeing the impulse toward personalization as an organized operation, some-
how cleverly orchestrated by individual ideologues, or even by an empow-
ered intelligentsia. For it was neither the result of a singular insight nor the
translation of a rhetorically constructed program into a set of prescriptions
for design. Rather, it resulted from the condensation of a number of actions
that acquired coherence after the end of WWII, reaching maximum effect
toward the end of the 1960’s. In other words, it is not possible to affirm that
the project of heterogeneity originated in the social sciences, more than
it did in a collective consciousness that expressed itself in the arts, and in
culture in general. While we cannot deal here with a detailed investigation
of this process, the hypothesis expressed above might be backed-up by an
analysis of the evolution of the work of Le Corbusier, most specifically, the
differences between his prototypical investigations for collective housing
initiated around 1915, and their first significant instantiation, the Unité d’
Habitation in Marseille (Fig. 1). Designed and built between 1945 and 1952,
the Unité anticipated many of the issues that would be the concern of both
architecture and urban sociology during the 1950’s and 1960’s.

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Fig. 1 - Unité d’ Habitation Marseille. Source: Oeuvre Complete Vol. 5.

As is known, Le Corbusier’s architectural thinking had placed the greatest

significance on housing.12 In contrast to the academic tradition he decried,
Le Corbusier understood, along with many others of his generation, that
architecture could not remain a representational practice, deeming it nec-
essary for it to engage tout court the challenges posed by modernization.
Thus, in his conscious self-historization, the early chapters of his career were
effaced in order to present a fresh and coherent picture, the start of which
was located in 1910, when he was 23. The concern with housing is evident
from the early studies on building component standardization and on the
application of Taylorist production techniques that he undertook since the
early days of the First World War.13 After years of intense speculation, the
1920’s offered Le Corbusier the opportunity to test the application of some
of his ideas on housing on the Werkbund exhibition in Stuttgart (1927), and,
more extensively, at the Quartier Moderne Frugès, the 200-dwelling (only
51 built) neighborhood he designed for industrialist Henry Frugès in Pessac
(1925).14 Although many of Le Corbusier’s preoccupations with dwelling played
themselves out already in Pessac, his by-then express interest in exploring
the architectural consequences of large-scale housing production had to be
delayed, largely due to his client’s demand that the workers’ neighborhood
was to be resolved through individual houses and a garden city-like scheme.
In the meantime, Le Corbusier dedicated copious efforts to the develop-
ment of large-scale, high-density housing prototypes. The most notable of
these prototypes were the à redent (recessed) blocks, the immeuble-villa

12.   See: Le Corbusier, Talks with Students (1943).

13.   Mary MacLeod, “Architecture or Revolution: Taylorism, Technocracy, and Social Change”, in Art
Journal Vol. 43, No. 2 (1983): 132-147.

14.   Marylène Ferrand, Jean-Pierre Feugas, Bernanrd Le Roy and Jean-Luc Veyret, Le Cobusier: Les
Quartiers Modernes Frugès (Basel, Boston, Berlin: Birkhäuser Publishers, 1998).

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 (in its two versions: the autonomous rectangular block, and the networked
inward‑facing apartment block type), both developed in the early twenties,
and the unité d’ habitation type, which seems to have taken shape as a ne-
gotiation between the unrestrained urbanistic speculations expressed in the
recessed block, and the possibility of large scale building commissions that
emerged toward the late 1930’s, and afterward, when the end of the Second
World War appeared on the horizon.

Computational modulation. When finally given the chance to realize an

exemplar of his utopian housing proposals in 1945 -thanks to the support of
Raoul Dautry, the first Minister of Urbanism and Reconstruction appointed
by De Gaulle after the liberation 15-, Le Corbusier exhibited a sensibility
that had developed greatly in relation to his interwar-period investigations.
Not only had the Unité drawn new potential from its raw appearance and
seeming low-tech construction.16 Equally significant was its highly evolved
programmatic mixture, by dint of which the far more schematic proposals
of the 1920’s and 1930’s were superseded. The building was now framed as a
self-contained unit, with a strong emphasis on community organization and
its expression. Carefully studied internal relations determined its feasibility
as an increasingly autonomous functional organism (see Fig. 2 - FLC 27145).
Even if its predecessor typology ‑the à redents units, first illustrated in
Urbanisme (1925), then developed in La Ville Radieuse (1933) and further
explored in Des Canons, Des Munitions… 17- can be seen to derive from es-
sentially the same architectural “genome” as the unité, the latter introduced
significant novelties. As opposed to the endlessness of the recessed blocks, a
new preoccupation with adequate sizing and modulation became the dominant
theme. On the scale of the building, the challenge was now that of achieving
a consistent size (“grandeur conforme”).18 Such size, which measured by the
number of inhabitants turned out to be, initially, in the range of 1000-2000,

15.   When the building was inaugurated by Eugène-Claudius Petit, the project had endured six
Ministerial changes in 7 years.

16.   Reyner Banham provided the basis for this canonical interpretation of the building in his book
The New Brutalism. Relativizing the transcendence of its “heroic scale, its originalities in sectional
organization, and its sociological pretensions”, he saw it as a critical turning point between a machine
aesthetic expressed in the formalist abstraction of purism, and a postwar sensibility that demystified
the nature of concrete as a “precise” building material. Our interpretation places greater emphasis on
the subtle evolution of the building typology, in light of a preoccupation with the idea of community
that will become pervasive the 1950’s. See: The New Brutalism. Ethic or Aesthetic? Documents of
Modern Architecture. Edited by Jürgen Joedicke (Stuttgart/Bern: Karl Krämer Verlag, 1966): 16.

17.   See: Le Corbusier, Des Canons, Des Munitions?... Merci! Des Logis SVP” (Paris: Éditions de
l’architecture d’aujourd’hui, 1937): 67-82.

18.   The translation of this expression is inconsistent across different publications. In Volume 4 of the
Oeuvre Complete “grandeur conforme” is rendered as “standard size”, in Volume 5 as “congruent
size”, in The Marseilles Block (1953), as “appropriate size”. In Jacques Sbriglio’s (see below) book it
was translated as “compliant size”. This preoccupation with the right size might imply the influence
of the Neighborhood Unit Theory.

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indicated a shift with regards to design methods employed a decade earlier

on occasion of the project for the Ville Radieuse.19

Fig. 2 - FLC 27145

The definition of the building as a unit of urbanization was less concerned

with providing a continuous infrastructure (this would come back in the
1950’s); it now rested on an adequate collaboration of its programmatic
components, such that, by means of repetition, an urban fragment could be
built up out of properly sized “bricks”, both materially and socially speak-
ing. Thus, while the à redents prototypes inserted in the projects for Paris,
Antwerp, Stockholm, Buenos Aires, and other cities included a number of
communal facilities, their sectional organization still gravitated toward the
ground plane. In the Unité, instead, the main focus of the communal services
was displaced to the 7th floor and to the 18th floor –the middle and the top of
the building- in an implicit recognition that the frame of reference was no
longer the entire city, but the building itself, as an independent functional
entity. Despite the frequent criticisms leveled at the Unité typology due to
this detachment from the ground plane and from urban networks in general,
its incipient bottom-up conception of the social organization of the city -as
reflected in the methods of quantification used to a determine its overall
scale and programmatic composition- introduced a significant novelty with
regard to previously top-down derived typologies in the Ville Radieuse.20

19.   André Wogenscky explained that, “Le Corbusier had to carefully work out the Unité’s right size.
In other words, how many families it could house –or rather, the requisite number of people that
would create a favorable environment for collective living. His team worked on this in conjunction
with an adviser from a hotel organization […] In so doing it reached the conclusion that the proper
size was a building that could house between 300 and 400 hundred families, representing between
1000 and 2000 residents. He used the term Unité d’Habitation de Grandeur Conforme to denote
that the building’s size had been carefully calculated for collective living. It had a sociological
meaning, implying that the Unité was like a village or a small town”. “Pourquoi les unités
d’habitation?”, Techniques et Architecture No. 341 (4-5/1982): 58-61. Quoted by Jacques Sbriglio, p.
148.

20.   An example of such criticism can be found in Philippe Panerai, Jean Castex and Jean-Charles
Depaule, Urban Forms. Death and Life of the Urban Block (Oxford: Architectural Press, 2004),

97
 The issue of dimension is no less relevant with regards to the definition of
the building’s physical moduli. With very few exceptions, Le Corbusier’s
preoccupation with standardization left its imprint throughout his entire
production.21 However, the challenge of postwar reconstruction was turned
by Le Corbusier into an opportunity to develop his own system of measure-
ment and proportionality, The Modulor. We need not delve into the genesis
of this complex and ambitious enterprise. In order to illustrate the scope of
the undertaking, it may suffice to recall that Le Corbusier saw his invention
as a universal standard for industrial production, poised to overcome the
division between the two existing norms, the French metric and the Anglo-
Saxon imperial systems. Through two influential books, published in 1950
and 1955, and a number of built applications, the Modulor system of mea-
surement and proportioning was able to stir up massive interest and polemic
for about a decade, before falling into oblivion until the late 1980’s -when
it was resurrected by a group of theorists associated with phenomenology.
Our interest here lies in underlining the symbolic importance of the Modulor
in the organization of the project for Marseille, where its implications are
most fully apparent. The initially established interpretation of The Modulor
–which must be at least partially credited to Rudolph Wittkower 22- placed it
as the inheritor of a Vitruvian tradition of architectural anthropomorphism,
embodying an enduring commitment of the discipline to humanist values. 23
More recently, British historian Robin Evans saw in it no more than the
afterlife of Le Corbusier’s interwar-period obsession with calculation and
rational control, extended into a phase where such issues could remain merely
residual. 24 In contrast to these views, according to which The Modulor is
either anachronistic or harks back to a timeless tradition, we might follow the
interpretation proposed by Hight, whereby it is recast as a Latourian “hybrid”

Chapter 5: Le Corbusier and the Cité Radieuse. Published originally as Formes Urbaines. De
L’Ilot à la Barre (Marseille, 1997). The statement by Alison and Peter Smithson “the assumption
that a community can be ‘created’ through geographic isolation is invalid”, can also be read as a
critique of the sociological underpinnings of the unité, their Golden Lane project functioning as the
demonstration of a counter-hypothesis of connectivity. See: “Human Associations”, in Alison and
Peter Smithson, Ordinariness and Light (1970): 42.

21.   Devoid of standard construction elements or a repetitious compositional approach, the church

at Ronchamp is frequently cited as a case in point. However, as proved by Robin Evans, the project
relies on the proportional controls of The Modulor. At least symbolically then, a certain idea of
standardization is present even the most free-form designs by Le Corbusier. See: The Projective
Cast. Architecture and its Three Geometries (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995): 273-321.

22.   In 1963 Wittkower wrote: “Le Corbusier is thus in line with Vitruvius and the Renaissance. When
you look at his design of the `Stele of Measurement´ built at the Unité d’ Habitation at Marseille,
you are right back at the anthropometric Renaissance exercises”. See: “Le Corbusier’s Modulor”, in
Four Great Makers of Modern Architecture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963). Henry A.
Millon, “Rudolf Wittkower. Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism: Its Influence on the
Development and Interpretation of Modern Architecture”, Journal of the Society of Architectural
Historians Vol. 31 No. 2 (5/1972):83-91.

23.   Christopher Hight suggests that “at the time of their publication Architectural Principles,
and The Modulor were conjoined twins, one looking back, the other forward”. See: Architectural
Principles in the Age of Cybernetics: 72-89.

24.   See: Robin Evans, The Projective Cast: 273-281.

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involving anthropos with a vast network of relations spanning the spheres of

nature and industry, the individual and the social. Rather than re-centering
architecture around the figure of man, The Modulor becomes a de-centering
device intended to “regulate technological production at the level of individual
subjects and thereby to incorporate them in the new body-politic”. 25 In this
sense, the importance of The Modulor in the project for Marseille parallels
the emphasis laid by Le Corbusier on the cell, both pointing at the small
scale as the source of organization. “When it comes to human housing, it is
the cell that commands”, he would write in retrospect, and it was precisely
at the level of the cell and its components, where The Modulor could operate
most efficiently. 26 For, if beyond a certain size the continuity of the Modulor
system of proportionality could be experienced as a weakly perceptible visual
phenomenon, the “harmonious” relationship between architecture and the
human body acquired tactile and ergonomic relevance –or at least that was
the claim made by Le Corbusier- when interacting with small-scale elements
and built environments. A brief passage by Le Corbusier reinforces the idea
that the change in his design philosophy, between the purist phase and his
post-war sensibility, implicates not only new expressive qualities, but a dif-
ferent sense of spatial organization: “No longer mere `shapes assembled
under the light´, but rather an internal fabric, firm like the flesh of a good
fruit, governing all things by the law of harmonies: a stratification [… ] All
this manifests the striving towards a molecular organization of things built,
on a harmonious scale of man”.27

In sum, by re-introducing a link between man and its environment, the devel-
opment of The Modulor stands out both as a key element in the construction
of a postwar theory of the architectural subject and as an active projective
device, capable of delivering standards and relational protocols for design
and industrial production. Furthermore, as mentioned above, this link is not
just utilitarian, but brings the symbolic dimension back to a conscious level of
architectural thinking. In that sense, the irrational nature of the Golden Ratio
(1.61803…), on which the Modulor system is founded, must be underlined.
On one hand, the adoption of a base-value that cannot be determined with
absolute precision can be interpreted, in itself, as a renunciation to ideals
of exactitude and certainty. Although perhaps most crucial is the fact that
The Modulor is a generative algorithm that produces a-periodic dimensional
standards, and thus cannot be reduced to any single common denominator.28

25.   Architectural Principles in the Age of Cybernetics: 179.

26.   Le Corbusier, The Marseilles Block. Translated by Geoffrey Sainsbury (London: Harvill Press,
1953): 13. Published originally in France in 1950. The importance of the cell in Le Corbusier’s
discourse on housing goes back to the 1920’s. See the lecture of October, 14 1929 published in
Precisions on the Present State of Architecture and City Planning.

27.   Le Corbusier, Le Modulor (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2000): 165-166. Reprinting of the first English
edition published in 1954 by Faber & Faber. Published originally in 1950. Italics in the original.

28.   It is worth recalling how Le Corbusier describes the generative process employed to produce
the geometry of The Modulor. A system of proportionality is first defined, based on the precise
positioning of a square, overlapping two other, adjacent squares of the same dimensions as the

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 In terms of a theory of formal differentiation based on a universal idea of
man this might well be its most radical facet. Hence, a revealing aspect of
The Modulor is that, by virtue of the complexity with which it entangles the
human figure in two endless series of irrational values, it both multiplies
and debilitates the idea of the module itself. The metaphor used by Corbu to
endow “shapes” with an internal granularity (“the flesh of a good fruit”) in
conjunction with the underlying irrationality of The Modulor can be inter-
preted as the search for new means to translate the irreducible complexity
that appeared to be lodged in the essence of the user, into his architectural
works -whether he/she be defined in the singular or in the plural.

In the intervening years since it heyday in the 1950’s, several criticism were
raised against the idea of The Modulor as system of regulation of propor-
tionality. Despite the interest it garnered among phenomenologists as a
metaphoric return to humanism and embodiment, claims against its valid-
ity cover a broad range. Between a wholesale dismissal of proportion as yet
another form of mysticism, and a denunciation of its reductive, value-laden
universalization of the user as a white-male body, the Unité and its logic of
molecular organization appeared to have reached the limits of what mod-
ern representation was able to deliver. If, as we shall see, the avant-garde
architectural discourse in the years that followed its completion seemed to
focus on developing the complexity of common spaces and services –in other
words, of communal life-, the idea of an internal complexity of the collective
would return as a dominant trope in the 1960’s.

Kit-of-parts generative systems. Further comparing the Unité with its

predecessors29 –the à redents typologies already mentioned, the Immeuble

first. The displacement of the first square with relation to (either of) the underlying squares is equal
to the difference between the length of its side and the length of its diagonal (=0.618 x side). The
description provided by Le Corbusier is in fact slightly more complicated than this, involving the
introduction of a right angle, whose function in the process is redundant. Only after the system
of proportional measurements is properly set, does the Modulor look for its appropriate scale, by
fitting itself the assumed height of a man with his upward arm extended. See: Modulor, Chapter 2,
“Chronological Review”, especially: 36-41.

29.   Many efforts have been made to reconstruct the evolution of Le Corbusier’s ideas on housing,
with the Unité in Marseille usually regarded as their crowning achievement ‑not least by Le
Corbusier himself. In the book that most thoroughly documents the Unité d’Habitation in Marseille,
he dedicates three pages to tracing the genealogy of the building, choosing to emphasize its position
within a lineage of speculations on the issues of high density living and vertical garden cities.
Projects dealing with lower densities are left aside, even if they constituted important precedents
in the definition of the characteristics of individual units, or in the logics of their differentiation
within a framework of standardized, repetitive building components and procedures. See: “Unité
d’Habitation a Marseille de Le Corbusier”, L`Homme et l´Architecture 11-12-13-14 (numéro spécial,
1947): 42-120. Before the construction of the building was finished, he sought to butress it politically
by publishing: “L’ Unité d’Habitation de Marseille” in Le Point. Revue Artistique et Littéraire No.
38, full issue (Mulhouse: Souillac, 1950). The history of the project has been studied by Jacques
Sbriglio, Le Corbusier: Unité d’habitation de Marseille (Basel: Birkhäuser Publishers, 2004) and
Gérard Monnier, Le Corbusier. Les Unités d’ Habitation en France (Paris: Belin, 2002). Other
recent contributions include: David Jenkins, Unité d’ Habitation Marseille (London: Phaidon,

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Bastion Kellermann (1935), the embryonic proposal of 18 autonomous build-

ings in the plan of Nemours (1933) or the more evolved project for Saint Dié
(1946)- not only do we see much more developed plans for the inclusion of
communal facilities, and novel approaches to the calibration of physical
and programmatic dimensions, but the variety of dwelling configurations
has also been considerably augmented –from a total of 12 variations in the
à redent schemes for Paris’s Ilôt No. 6, to a virtual catalogue of 23 differ-
ent dwelling types in Marseille.30 Indeed, while the typological configura-
tion of the unité can be said to manifest an evolved conception of the city
that must be broken down into calculated modules in order to exist, the
dwelling-component of the project is not merely diverse, but has acquired
a high degree of systematization. The catalogue of unit-types is the result
of a careful rule-based operation (Fig. 3). The process can be conceptual-
ized as the concatenation of two sub-operations, one involving proliferation
and a second one focused on limitation. The first operation consists in the
exploration of a gridded space generated by the combination of a set of four
different sub-unit elements (called A, X, Y and Z, controlled dimensionally
by the Modulor). On the horizontal axis of the grid, the size of the dwelling
units is plotted in regular A-width intervals (1.75 m.) –the base module “A”
having a surface area considered by Le Corbusier as an ideal, universal aver-
age for a single person (1.75 m x 8.25 m = 14.40 m2). Thus the A-type units
(individual rooms for guests) are 14 m2, B-type units (studios for singles and
couples) are 28 m2,31 C-types (single orientation, one-bedroom maisonettes)
deviate from the standard at 59 m2, E‑types (single or double orientation
maisonettes for families of up to four children) are 98 m2, G-types (double
orientation maisonettes for large families with four to eight children) are
slightly below par at maximum occupancy with 137 m2 (=10 x 13.7 m2),

1993) and Axel Menges (ed.), Le Corbusier. Unité d’habitation, Marseille. Texts by Alban Janson
and Carsten Kronhn. (Suttgart and London: Axel Menges, 2007); as well as articles by Reyner
Banham, “La Maison des Hommes et la Misère des Villes” in H. Allen Brooks (ed.), Le Corbusier.
The Garland Essays (New York: Garland, 1987): 107-116; Alexander Tzonis, “La Poética de la
Unidad de Marsella”, in A&V No. 10 (1987): 42-45; Roger Aujame, “Las Unités de Habitación. Cinco
Plasmaciones de un Modelo”, in A&V No. 10 (1987): 36-41.

30.   This figure has been repeated in many publications –for example, Sbriglio (2004) and Curtis
(1986)- and is based on diagrams used by Le Corbusier and the ATBAT to describe their approach
to the differentiation of the dwellings. But the issue is more complicated. As can be expected from
a project that took five years to design and build, important changes were made even while the
building was on site. The most reliable sources on this matter are to be found in drawings FLC
26406b, dated 15/12/1948. amended on 2/9/1949 (Figs. 4 and 5), and FLC 31861 (Fig. 6), dated
17/9/1952. The first drawing shows diagrammatic elevations and a table with the final unit count,
including the three large H-type units (1 x 175 m2 and 2 x 203 m2) which had not been documented
in any of the “official” publications. It also shows a great variety of sub-types and sub-sub-types,
particularly for types C, and E, each of which have 8 sub-variants. FLC 31861 shows the precise
location of the units on each floor, as well as the number that was assigned to them upon completion
of the building. All things considered, there are 15 different types of units in the building.

31.   The description of the B-type studio apartment shows an inconsistent area measurement of 32.5
m2, when the actual size should be 28 m2. A possible explanation for this might be the inclusion of
the balcony in the area estimate. The detailed explanation of the generative system was published in
L’ Homme et l’ Architecture (1950), p. 76.

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 and so on. On the vertical axis of the grid, all possible modes of adjacency
among the various modules comprising the unit are tested; the greater the
number of modules utilized by each unit type, the larger the number of pos-

Fig. 3. Comparison of dwelling types based on the combination of different sub-units.

sible combinations.32 The second phase of the process, dealing with limita-
tion, is essentially an evaluation of the permutations generated within the
grid. Functional and pragmatic concerns are introduced in order to check
the viability of each of the types; some are deemed unworkable, or inconve-
nient, and are eliminated from the project. This is the fate ran by all D- and
F-type units, which, given their fractional width-module count, are found
“difficult to combine with the other unit-types”. Even if not made explicit
in the publications of the project, other visible criteria for determining the
viability of a given unit-type is the efficiency of use of the internal circulation
streets. There exists an underlying effort to maximize the intensity of use of
the “elevated streets” (i.e.: to accommodate the maximum possible number
of apartment entrances on internal corridors), which leads to the reduction
of the frontage of each unit along it to a single width module. This limitation
implies that unit configurations for types E, F, G, and H, must by necessity
be duplex –and in most cases also double-orientation.

32.  In this first operation, some restrictions are already limiting the space of permutations, for
example: maximum unit height = 2 floors.

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Fig. 4 - FLC 26406b (1948)

Spatial and Social Syntax. What does this elaborate system of difference
production reveal about the nature of the intended users of the building?
It is important to recall that Le Corbusier had accepted the commission for
Marseille on the condition that he be given free rein –i.e.: be exempt from
compliance with building codes and regulations- to carry out his experiment.
In The Marseilles Block, he quotes the following dialogue with Jules Moch, the
fleeting Minister of Reconstruction and Urbanism (December 1946-January
1947, third since Dautry) appointed by Léon Blum during his equally brief
third tenure as Prime Minister:

‘What do you think of [the report advocating the modifi-

cation of your plans] M. Le Corbusier?

‘I don’t even consider it’

‘Splendid –he answered. From now on I propose to call

the project Unité d’habitation Le Corbusier, and it will be
referred to as such in all official documents. You are free
of all restrictions and above the law. You are the judge of
what you should do and you can innovate to your heart’s
content. You alone are responsible.’

‘Right, Monsieur Le Ministre. But you will allow me to

say that my responsibilities are already taken, and it is

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 now the turn for yours. Get ready a social group which
is fit to live in the Unité d’ Habitation’. 33

Fig. 5 - FLC 26406b (1948). Detail of table showing final apartment count.

Even if the apartments of the Unité had been planned to fulfill the needs of war
victims, this passage makes it clear that the program of the building, includ-
ing the variation of dwelling-types, could not have resulted from a survey of
pre-established beneficiaries, but must have been elaborated by the ATBAT
itself, with the aim of bringing to fruition a theoretical idea of social balance
and welfare; this hypothesis is backed up by Wogenscky’s claim that the AT-
BAT had been assisted by a hotel consultant in preparing the project.34 At any
rate, the conception of the family as the formative nucleus of society that Le
Corbusier and François de Pierrefeu had advocated in La Maison de l’Homme
did not find a simplistic translation into the architectural program of the Unité.
Included in the wide range of household‑types to be found in the project is a
large number of dwelling types B and C (23% of the total), which are intended

33.   The Marseilles Block: 9-10.

34.   See n. 19, page 6. Furthermore, the number of dwelling units and the main communal elements
of the program stayed approximately unchanged throughout the entire design process, which
took place between 1945 and 1949. The initial studies had been conducted in 1945 for a different
site. The number of dwellings in the original scheme was 358. As previously discussed, this figure
was considered of great relevance, for it was in direct connection to the number of inhabitants,
established at 1600. Confronted with the impossibility of fitting a single north-south oriented block
in the narrow first site, the ATBAT deemed it preferable to split the building into three separate
bodies rather than reducing the number of units to 218, which is the amount they could house in a
single north-south block. See: Oeuvre Complete Vol. 4. 1938-1945: 172-174.

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for couples with at most one child. Moreover, by virtue of the vertical con-
nectivity provided by the double-height spaces within the dwellings, unusual
forms of socialization are fostered, particularly in all the units that are accessed
through the upper level (Ci’s, Ei1’s and Ei2’s, Gi1’s and Gi2’s), which make up
about 50% of the apartments. All such dwellings are internally connected by
a double height space linking the entrance/kitchen/dinning level with a lower
level, in which the private quarters are located. Whereas in the apartments that
are accessed through the lower level, dining and living areas are adjacent to the
kitchen at the entry level, in the latter they are split, the living zone working
virtually as an extension of the main bedroom –with an inevitable compromise
to privacy.35 Defying the dictates of XIXth century morality that had given rise
to the corridor-type domestic organization, these functional topologies are to
be counted among the most innovative aspects of the project. If this feature is
interpreted in light of Robin Evans’ statement that an architectural plan can be
read as a physical registration –an index- of the nature of the human relation-
ships that it frames (actual, or intended, we might add), we should be inclined
to conclude that Le Corbusier was determined to driving his reformist impulses
down to the molecular level of French society.36 It is also possible, however,
to argue that at least part of the apartment’s spatial syntax derives not from a
preconceived diagram of relations within the family, but from the interaction of
a system of abstract constraints operating at scales smaller and larger than it.
From the span of the structural module ‑4.19 meters, a measurement in keeping
with the palette offered by the Modulor-, to the area-per-person ratio, to the
overall building volume, a number of settings appear to have been fixed with
the concept an ideal community and an ideal individual in mind, but without a
detailed concern for the standard functional diagram of a dwelling. Hence the
internal organization of some of the apartments was forced into configurations
that defy a conventional domestic layout. If the latter were a tenable hypothesis,
it would serve to buttress the general notion that architectural and social in-
novation are not always reducible to intent, but can emerge out of the rigorous
deployment of systems of difference-production, followed by the acceptance of
their results and the exploration of their potentiality.

35.   These apartment-types clearly presented a challenge from the point of view of their organization.
As an example, while apartments Ei 1 were published in Volume 5 of the Oeuvre Complete (in
accordance with plans FLC 24405 and FLC 26397) as described above, in the listed apartment
number 50, also an Ei 1-type, a careful restoration has been carried out which shows the master
bedroom taking the place of one of the children’s bedrooms. The living area has been consolidated
in a double height space. The master bedroom, however has a strange layout, since the double bed
takes up almost the entire width of the room (1.75 m.). It is also telling that none of the photographs
of the apartments published either in the Oeuvre Complete, or in any of the other “official”
publications of the building, show the spatial arrangement of these units.

36.   The hypothesis that Le Corbusier’s architecture was mobilized by a precise stance in regards to
Victorian morality would find resonance in his known affection for nudity and –as his biographer
Nicholas Fox Weber has suggested based on a study of his personal letters and sketchbooks- for
promiscuity. See: Le Corbusier. A Life (New York: Random House, 2008). The relation between
patterns of social behavioral and architectural organization has been studied by Robin Evans in
“Rookeries and Model Houses”, and “Figures, Doors and Passages” (1978), both published in
Translations from Drawing to Building and Other Essays (1997).

105
 Fig. 6 - FLC 31861 (1952).

Post-occupancy dynamic. The process of occupation and community-for-

mation that followed after the building’s completion might be seen to reinforce
the previous conjecture. As recounted by W. Brian Newsome, the initial plans
to allocate the building to the victims of war damages were partially botched by
the MRU’s decision to transfer excess construction costs to the selling price of
the apartments.37 Although it had been initially assumed that the Unité’s apart-
ments would be rented out and administered by a governmental division, it soon
became clear that the financial burden of running the numerous common services
in the building would render leasing prices prohibitive.38 Unwilling to take up
responsibility for an enterprise of ambiguous legal status, the MRU decided to
proceed with the sale of the apartments in January, 1951. But, given that final
selling prices were elevated, ownership of the units ended up predominantly in
the hands of government bureaucrats. This implied that the socio‑occupational
profile of the first generation of dwellers in the Unité neither resembled the
original plans, nor matched the average picture of the population of Marseille.

Far from becoming a nuisance, the fact that the building placed such unusual
challenges, both on its users and on the state in charge of its provision, was
able to forge a mystique that allowed it to overcome a number of teething
problems during the 1950’s. Identity and social cohesion among its inhabitants
nevertheless gradually emerged, to the point that the project of an integrated
community –even if different from the one originally intended- can be said to
have been accomplished.39

37.  See: W. Brian Newsome, French Urban Planning 1940-1960. The Construction and Destruction
of an Authoritarian System. (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2009): 64.

38.  Based on this premise, Gérard Monnier suggests that the notion of a Service of Public Housing
–which would compensate the offset between the costs of rental and those of services provision- was
implicit throughout the design and construction of the Unité, although it was not made public for
political reasons. See: Le Corbusier. Les Unités d’Habitation en France (Paris: Belin, 2002): 63-69.

39.  “Recent analyzes by Caroline Jacquot lead her to recognizing three distinct generations in the

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Dressed in camouflage. If the study of the quantitative, programmatic

makeup of the Unité can reveal non-evident information about the nature of
its intended users, the way and degree to which such “content” is conveyed
to a generic observer places us squarely within the domain of architectural
expression. The relevance of expression stems here from the premise that
the social composition and functional layout of the project are by them-
selves insufficient in providing a conceptual account of its subject. There is
no question that the syntax of relations as determined by spatial planning
involves subjective, value-laden decisions. The more the logics of planning
and configuration are pushed to an extreme of performance –as was the case,
for example with Alexander Klein’s studies for the circulatory optimization of
the dwelling, or with the XIXth century hygienist efforts analyzed by Robin
Evans- the more they become transparent with regards to the value system
from which they derive. But, in contrast to the scientific type of architectural
planning advocated by the radical wing of modernism and to other forms of
planning that claim to be driven strictly by performance –such as engineering-,
the approach to housing epitomized in the work of Le Corbusier and many
of his contemporaries is defined, despite their declared interest in efficiency
and Taylorization, by their attempt to produce qualitative leaps in architec-
tural production (i.e.: innovation), and not just to induce an optimization
of the need-fit relation –we need to look no further than Reyner Banham’s
1960 conclusion to Theory and Design and the First Machine Age to realize
the inadequacy of functionalism as label for the architectural theory of the
first half of the twentieth century. Therefore, an approach to the question
of architectural expression, understood as the aspect of physical organiza-
tion whose aim is to invite subjective response, in this context, needs to be
focused on a space of critical discrimination whereby the representation of
such abstract categories as the individual and the community are rendered
topical. In other words, it is not expression “in general” that is of interest
here, for that would lead us to a study of dynamics that far exceed the scope
of what is amenable to architectural action; rather, it is the idea of expression
as a domain that is available to a certain degree of conscious steering and
technical codification. On this basis, one could lay out a framework for analysis
by identifying patterns or regularities that emerge between the immaterial
domain of “program” and its physical registration as segregated, individual
bodies, or as inscriptions on the surfaces of a generic architectural body. 40

peopling of the Unité: the pioneer generation (who entered between 1952 and 1960), the generation
attracted by the advantageous cost of housing (between 1960 and 1986, when the price matched the
profit of the dwellings), and the generation that came since the material and symbolic restoration
of the building… The first generation played a leading role in the residents’ association, which
was established on January 13th, 1953. It strives to give reality to the project of community life in
the radiant city, publishes a manual of “inhabitation know-how,” manages the installed activities
(tennis clubs, bridge, library), and organizes celebrations and birthdays”. G. Monnier, Op. cit: 69; my
translation.

40.   By stressing the limitations of the idea of functionalism, it is not a lack of pattern between
expression and content which we seek to underline, but rather the non-linearity of their

107
 Some of these patterns are evident. One of them could be described as the
association of certain elements of the program to a rhetoric of repetitive,
mass-produced components, while others are managed through a lexicon
of singularity, uniqueness, and hand-craftedness. The much quoted and
reproduced image‑metaphor of the building as a bottlerack-like superstruc-
ture, where prefabricated units are inserted, resonates with the distinct con-
struction techniques chosen for each system –one rough, imprecise, almost
idiosyncratic, the other one repetitious, impersonal, etc. The entry hall, the
vertical circulation shaft, the pilotis, the concrete superstructure itself, and
the various elements organized on the roof-terrace belong in the former
category. The dwelling units make up the other half of the dialectic. On this
level, two decisions stand out: first, the fact that the information conveyed by
the façade does not speak about dwelling types, but points to a sub-unit level
of order, for it only reflects whether a single or double height space is behind
it; second, the fact that the depth of the façade is emphasized by the color
coding of its internal surfaces, showing an interest in the enrichment of the
external perception of the building41 while renouncing to indexing program-
matic or spatial information, and creating instead a degree of “confusion” or
“noise” in the signal, all of which can be interpreted as an affirmation of idea
that the social composition of the collective –even if complex- is unable to
produce an adequate representation of itself without some sort of ancillary
mechanism of spatial differentiation. This mechanism was referred to by Le
Corbusier as “camouflage”.42

The fact that the façade of the building received this kind of treatment
demonstrates that Le Corbusier saw it as bearing its own responsibility in
the construction of a coherent discourse vis-à-vis the public domain. This
responsibility overpowered at once functional doctrines, structural expres-
sionism, and proportional controls, underpinning an image of the collective
that rendered previous attempts dour and mechanistic. By relinquishing a
fully consistent relationship between program and image, and by installing
an almost musical sensibility of syncopation and rhythmic multi-layering,
the elevations of the building acquire a complex relationship to its content.
This is most evident, for example, when the child-care facilities on the 18 th
floor are disguised as regular apartments, or when the fire stairs on the east
façade are “dressed” with brightly painted loggias, as though a dwelling were
located in its place. Likewise, the relationship of the east façade of the Unité
with the ground plane betrays a formal ambiguity that can be traced back
to the placement of the services block underneath the main volume of the
Villa Saboye, whereby the separation of the piano nobile from the level of

relationship.

41.  For the upward poiting surfaces, which can only be seen from inside the apartments are left
unpainted.

42.  See: Jacques Sbriglio, L’Unite d’Habitation de Marseille: 58. See the information on color for the
facades on Sketchbooks; D16, and E21 N. 537.

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the natural terrain is compromised by the vertical continuity of the approach

(south-east) façade.

Fig. 7a - FLC 25342 (1946).

In the case of the Unité, it is possible to gain an accurate insight into the
evolution of the ATBAT’s thinking with regards to the need of being “truth-
ful” to the expression of program. An early study of the west elevation of
the project (Fig. 7a), dated December 12th 1946, for example, shows a more
“honest”, yet decidedly clumsier version of the building. 43 At this stage the
two escape stairs were still located on the west side of the building -on the
third project they were moved to the east side- and could be recognized on
the façade due to the interruption of the repetitive rhythm of attached log-
gias and the presence, instead, of a pair of square windows on each floor.
The communal areas on the 18th floor had also been veiled with a vertical
type of brise-soleil resembling the type finally adopted to protect the com-
mercial street. Despite the crudeness of this early drawing it is tempting to
imagine that it might have served to confirm the suspicion that excessive
fragmentation of the main building mass would have complicated a clear
reading of the dialectic between the singular and the repetitive components
of the project. This fragmentation would have been further exacerbated by
the decision -ultimately adopted- to place the main elevator shaft and the
two fire stairs on the same (east) façade. Although there is no drawing on
the Le Corbusier Foundation Archive to confirm this hypothesis, one might
suppose that this might have been a foregone conclusion and so a graphic
confirmation would have been unnecessary.

In conclusion, the systematic but un-mechanical use of color on the façades

reveals (Figs. 7b and 7c), if nothing else, an interest in conveying, and, perhaps,
amplifying, the sense of the complexity of the internal life of the building.
This complexity arises not just from the variety of dwelling units included
in the project, but also from the presence of communal facilities as well as
services catered to visitors and external users. If the conception of the user of
the building is expanded in this latter sense ‑to include not only he/she/they

43.   The only printed reproduction of this drawing can be found in The Le Corbusier Archive. 32
Vols. (Garland Publishing, 1982), Vols. 16-17 . The opposite façade appeared on page 28 of the 1947
publication.

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 who inhabit/s it, but also those who relate to it in more transient ways, such
as working or performing maintenance, visiting occasionally or simply being
passer-bys who engage with it on a purely visual basis-, then Le Corbusier’s
design comes across as an attempt to recast a message of “unity” that hinges
on two decisive, complementary facts: first, the need to establish the idea of
an internally differentiated socio-physical organism by means of by a precise
logic of spatial planning, and second, the aim to further confound, diffuse,
and blur the perception of the primary social distinctions thereby created
through a number of formal and chromatic operations. These operations
engender a much finer-grained texture for the architecture of housing. As
will become evident in the analysis of the projects by Team 10 that picked up
the legacy of the Unité, they express an emerging conception of the collec-
tive, which was not only the outward expression of a preexisting theoretical
discourse, but rather one of the elements that contributed to catalyzing the
tenets of the architectural and social discourse of the three ensuing decades.44

Fig. 7b - Study of polychromy for the east and south façades of the Unité.

44.   The idea of the “molecular” was referred to repeatedly by Le Corbusier to refer to a new
sensibility during the 1940’s. “The whole can be renewed by these molecular efforts, infinitely
multiplied”. See: “Response by Le Corbusier (1947)” in Giedion (1958), Cit.: 75.

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2.3 Materialization of Commonalities in the 1950’s

There is a great abundance of sources to confirm that, since the early 1950’s,
the issues of social heterogeneity and architectural variety became nothing
less than a ‘mantra’, sang in relative unison by architects, planners, and social
scientists. The cause was pushed with similar emphasis by critics of modernist
architecture and planning, as well as by social researchers and reformers. 45
During the 1950’s and part of the 1960’s, this cooperation between design
and the social sciences flourished, both fields developing a concern with the
question of “community”, its functional mechanisms, and its internal dif-
ferentiation. The contributions to the discourse of “community” during this
period are simply overwhelming in both quantity and breadth –their relevance
waning in the 1970’s after twenty years of splendor. Here, we shall postpone
the discussion of some important works such as Christopher Alexander and
Serge Chermayeff’s empirical analysis and subsequent critique of the social
relations developing in post-war residential architecture, both collective and
individual.46 The transformation of these studies into a semi‑autonomous
movement, acting on the fringe between architecture and social welfare
must also be bracketed out for the moment. 47 We shall first turn to earlier
manifestations of an interest in community arising directly from discussions
within CIAM, and in the thinking of the architects that came together to form
Team 10. The latter evolved, since their participation in CIAM 9 (Aix-en-
Provence, 1953), into a tightly woven international group. Based on shared
professional and generational traits, their bonds grew close enough for the
emergence of what they, themselves, called “a family”. Far from being a
merely sentimental description, this characterization is key, for it exposes
one of the fundamental paradoxes of its cultural moment: the emergence
of a “community” out of a geographically dispersed network of architects,
and the simultaneously rising interest in the notion of “community” as an
organization defined by spatial continuity.

Dispersed Networks and Local Communities. The Sociology of

Difference
Having participated in the meetings of CIAM since Bridgewater ’47 (Aldo Van

45.  In a panoramic survey on the subject, Wendy Sarkissian affirms that “the idea of social mix,
which slumbered between the wars, was revived on a large scale at the end of World War II”. See:
“The Idea of Social Mix in Town Planning. An Historical Review”, Urban Studies No. 13 (1976): 234.

46.  In many ways, this grand narrative is an practical application of the Alexander’s PhD thesis. See:
Serge Chermayeff and Christopher Alexander, Community and Privacy. Toward a New Architecture
of Humanism (New York: Doubleday, 1963).

47.  Decoupled from mainstream sociology, the development of this movement reveals a not-so-
infrequent conflation of progressive and conservative politics around a cause deemed popular. The
Community Architecture movement was emblematic of this by claiming for its ranks both the figures
of a socialist like Ralph Erskine, and of HRH Prince Charles of Wales, a supporter of the movement
of radically conservative views, through his endorsement of the leadership of Rod Hackney at the
Royal Institute of British Architects. See: Jim Sneddon and Ian Findaly, “A Turbulent Decade”,
Building Design (21 of november 1986): 20-23.

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 Eyck and Jacob Bakema), Bergamo ‘49 (George Candilis) and Hoddesdon
’51 (Alison and Peter Smithson), Team 10 members had undoubtedly felt
interpellated by Sigfried Giedion’s calls for a new definition of the relation
between the individual and the collective and by the renewed interest of
the older generation in issues of neighborhood and community planning.48
The most articulate expressions of Team 10’s “community thinking” are to
be found in the early articles of Alison and Peter Smithson, and somewhat
later in the writings of Shadrach Woods and Aldo Van Eyck.49 As opposed
to interwar reformist attitudes toward working-class communities for whom
certain modes of gregariousness were seen as pernicious, Alison and Peter
Smithson embodied a new social sensibility, for which they had established
equivalent architectural and esthetic expression in concepts such as “cluster
housing” and the “as found”. This sensibility permeated the cultural scene in
1950’s London, bridging the activities of architects and artists (most notably
those gathered in The Independent Group) with studies conducted by soci-
ologists and anthropologists.50 It is no coincidence that the pictures of East
London street-life taken by Nigel Henderson in late 40’s –later used by the
Smithsons in the “grille” presented at the CIAM congress in Aix-en-Provence-
predated the landmark study of Bethnal Green conducted by sociologists
Peter Willmott and Michael Young between 1953 and 1955 by a few years.
Both the scientists and the artists emphasized the tightly woven, dynamic,
“genuine” aspect of these human groups.51 In such context, the question that
architects, artists and social scientists were confronting dealt with the nature
of those communities –what socio‑physical factors made them lively, close-
knit, etc.-, as well as with the possibilities of instrumentalizing knowledge
acquired from them into new projects of social relevance.

48.   Sigfried Giedion, “The Need for a New Monumentality”, reprinted in Architecture, You and
Me. The Diary of a Development (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958), published
originally in 1944; “The Humanisation of Urban Life”; cit. The attempts to introduce the concepts of
community and neighborhood planning in the agenda of CIAM 6 are narrated and documented in
The CIAM Discourse on Urbanism 1928-1960: 168-171.

49.   See: Alison and Peter Smithson, “An Urban Project”, in Architects’ Yearbook 5 (London: 1953):
49-55. also: “Cluster Housing: A New Shape for the Community”, Architectural Review (11/1957).
Shadrach Woods, “Stem”, Le Carré Bleu (3/1961); “Web”, Le Carré Bleu (3/1962); Aldo Van Eyck,
quoted by Alison Smithson in Team 10 Primer 1953-1962, special issue of Architectural Design
(12/1962): 600-604.

50.   Challenging established English modern art circles, The Independent Group functioned
informally between 1952 and 1956. It brought together the impulses of Brutalism, Pop Art, science
fiction and existentialist philosophy. Its latest appearance was the exhibition This is Tomorrow,
which featured work by Nigel Henderson, Eduardo Paolozzi, James Stirling, Peter Carter, Colin St.
John Wilson, Alison and Peter Smithson, among others, and included texts by Lawrence Alloway,
Reyner Banham, and David Lewis. See: This is Tomorrow. Exhibition Catalogue. (London: The
Whitechapel Gallery, 2010 [1956]).

51.  Having married anthropologist Judith Stephen in 1943, the Hendersons moved to Bethnal Green
two years later in order to facilitate Judith’s proto-ethnographic research project based on direct
experience and individual case-studies. The project was called “Discover your Neighbour”. See:
Thomas Schregenberger and Claude Lichtenstein (eds.), As Found. The Discovery of the Ordinary
(Baden: Lars Müller Publishers, 2001): 23.

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Despite these widely shared interests and intentions, no clear agreement

existed on the definition of community itself or on the possibility of delib-
erately engineering such an organization. In fact, even if the concept could
be traced back to Ferdinand Tönnies’s 1887 differentiation between Ge-
meinschaft (community) and Gesellschaft (society), practical definitions of
the idea abounded and broad accord was never reached. 52 By the mid 1960’s
community studies were already denounced as “myth”, arguing that “com-
munity” was too vague a term to be useful for any kind of analysis, and that
locality‑based networks –if at all real- had no precise boundaries and were
better defined in terms of incomplete social systems. 53

Among artists, architects and intellectuals of non-Marxist orientation, however,

the centrality of community remained unquestioned for most of the 1950’s.
An implicit consensus, perhaps grounded on XIXth century reformism and
on the sociology of Emile Durkheim, dictated that a certain degree of internal
differentiation was a desirable condition for the healthy development of a
social group. Yet, the questions of how much and what kind of differentia-
tion remained contentious. For, on the one hand, there were no conclusive
scientific studies to deal explicitly with those issues, and, on the other, it
seemed intuitively clear that exemplary case studies such as Bethnal Green
represented in fact quite homogenous social groups, at least when measured
by the orthodox stick of “class”.54 Thus emerged the opinion among sociolo-
gists and urban planners from both Europe and the United States that social
diversity within a community organization, though necessary, had to be kept
in check. Herbert Gans, the influential American sociologist who started pub-
lishing in the early 1960’s against the policies of urban renewal, dedicated his
initial writings to the analysis of social diversity within emerging suburban
communities, cautioning against the idea that a balanced community had
to be by definition, highly diverse. He suggested that “extreme heterogene-
ity is likely to inhibit communication and to encourage mutual resentment,
whereas moderate heterogeneity provides enough compatibility of interests
and skills to enable communication -and therefore learning- to take place.”
He concluded, however, that the amount of difference -or homogeneity- re-
quired for a viable community to develop could not be known with precision
given the unavailability of empirical studies. 55

52.  Society designates any grouping of individuals, even if related through abstract categories or
functional relations; community refers to groups defined by actual proximity and direct physical
interaction. See: Muthesius and Glendinning: 102.

53.  See: Margaret Stacey, “The Myth of Community Studies”, The British Journal of Sociology Vol.
20 No. 2 (6/1969): 134-147.

54.  “The amount of empirical evidence germane to this question is quite scanty and derived from
unsophisticated and very simplistic research designs”. See: W. Ryan et al., “All in Together: An
Evaluation of Mixed-Income Multi-Family Housing” (Boston: Massachussetts Housing Finance
Agency, 1974). “It may, therefore, be assumed that the current case for social mix rests largely on the
theoretical writings of its historical proponents”, W. Sarkissian, cit.: 234

55.   See: Herbert Gans, “The Balanced Community. Homogeneity or Heterogeneity in Residential

Areas”, Journal of the American Institute of Planners Vol. 27 No. 3 (1961): 176-185.

113
 All of these cautionary tales did not suffice to undermine the value of het-
erogeneity in social groups. It prevailed, even through disciplinary disagree-
ments and paradigm changes, the most immediate and visible of which put
an end, in the 1960’s, to the neo-reformist attempts at engineering some
sort of “mixed-class” community, and to the ensuing utopia of a pragmatic
collaboration between architects, planners and sociologists.56 Once more,
the crisis of such impulses did not mean the abandonment of the pursuit of
heterogeneity; it only demonstrated the limitations of social class as a viable
criteria for social composition. As we shall see, even if distrust and crossed
accusations mounted between architecture and sociology, the quest for het-
erogeneity did not lose any of its force in the ensuing decades. 57

On the contrary, in the fields of architecture and town planning, the concept
of social heterogeneity appeared at the same time inevitable and benign, yet
impossible to match, at a formal level, in any mechanistic fashion. With how
much specificity, particularity, responsiveness and precision did architectural
form need to approximate, reflect, express its social content? And what was
the nature of this content? How much individuation –i.e. fragmentation- could
the idea of the collective resist? These seem to have been questions that could
not be left unaddressed by anyone with a conscience. Even propositions by
architects who placed themselves outside of this theoretical debate (from
Aldo Rossi and his minimalist Gallaratese housing block in Milan, to Mies
Van Der Rohe’s “without rhetoric” Lafayette Park in Detroit, 1958-1965, “by
far the most civilized dwelling quarter [of] this century” 58) could be read,
within this framework, as a coherent reaction to the pertinence of any such
social realities as valid arguments for formal articulation: a near zero degree
of responsiveness to heterogeneity; a blankness of sorts which, nonetheless,
could not hide its ambition of becoming a background, a canvas, or a frame for
a subtle inscription of individuality, be that composed of outlying or flanking
items such as cars, curtains, plants, personal miscellanea, or whatever other
“signs of inhabitation” were available.

56.  In the United Kingdom, according to Muthesius and Glendinning, the “honeymoon” between
sociology and architecture lasted only until about 1960. Although certain parallels between the two
disciplines lingered, the prevalent relationship afterward was of hostility. See: Tower Block, Ch. 13:
103. In a symposium on Architecture and Sociology held at the Architectural Association in London
in 1962, Ruth Glass, the renown British urban sociologist expressed conviction in the lack of any
deterministic relationship between spatial organization and community development, decrying the
idea that communal interaction had to remain the focus of housing design and planning. See: Peter
Willmott and Edmund Cooney, “The Architect and the Sociologist: A Problem of Collaboration” in
Architectural Association Journal (2/1962): 173-187.

57.  As an example of this waning collaboration, Peter Smithson’s flirtations with urban sociology
were symptomatic of both the excitement and confusion that reigned in the 50’s. In 1957 he declared:
“In England […] the value of social anthropological study seems to me to be pretty low as far as
being able to use it creatively. Social anthropology will never be able to tell you what to do. It will be
able to say what pattern in the past was such and such because they had certain motivations and so
on, but what the pattern is to be now seems to me more a matter of men than social anthropology”,
Team 10 Primer: 599-600.

58.  Without Rhetoric. An Architectural Aesthetic (1973):38.

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Heterogeneity as Composition: Between English Picturesque

and Swedish Empiricism
But if something can be affirmed about the theoretical inclinations of Team
10 –despite their internal disagreements and ambiguities, including Alison
and Peter Smithson’s simultaneous admiration for the abstraction of Mies’s
work and for the “throw-away esthetic” of American popular culture-, it is
their ambition of prolonging the explicit commitment of CIAM to the broader
social issues in which architectural praxis was involved. Thus, even while
the Smithson’s purported to eschew the machine-rhetoric, a wide range of
design techniques and figurative languages were being developed within the
core of Team 10 -as well as by some of its later members, like Ralph Erskine
and Giancarlo De Carlo- in an effort to precisely address such issues at both
instrumental and poetic levels.

The contribution of Ralph Erskine (1914-2005) to this polemic might at first

seem peripheral. Not only did he become part of Team 10 a few years later
than the original members -around the time of CIAM ’59-, but the volume
of his appearances in the “official” literature of the group is relatively thin:
two drawings on arctic cities in the Primer (1962), two pages of discussion
of his housing project for Tibro in the issue of Architectural Design (AD)
dedicated to meeting at Royaumont ’62 (11/1975), a brief text and a single
diagram showing his proposal for new housing and retail in Cambridge
published in the August 1964 issue of AD, and a few mentions by Alison
Smithson in Team 10 Meetings (1954-1984) -where the pages from the 1964
and 1975 issues of AD were also re-printed. As is known, most of this mate-
rial is composed of edited records of the meetings held by the group, and,
as such, contains transcriptions of informal presentations, conversations
and debates; Erksine’s participation in these conversations must have been
sporadic ‑unless, that is, it was edited-out by Alison Smithson during the
production of the books and articles. 59 Yet, Erskine’s presence in Team 10
is unique –and perhaps even strategic- not just because of the esthetic and
social values it embodied, but because it was emblematic of the role played
by Swedish architectural culture in the wider context of European post-war
reconstruction, most particularly in England. Beyond the personal reasons
behind it, Erskine’s emigration from England into Sweden, in 1939, had
been a demonstration of the interest that the Swedish socialist-democratic

59.  This should be checked against the digitized recordings of Team 10 meetings held at the
Netherlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam, and other locations. However, the fact that many
Team 10 documents are highly idiosyncratic renderings of the actual meetings was acknowledged
by Alison Smithson herself. It has also been underscored by Team 10 scholars such as Annie Pedret,
who quotes an unpublished letter from Peter Smithson to Manfred Schiedhelm of November 1977,
in which Smithson affirmed that “[Alison] controlled everything –layout, pictures sizes, text, etc.
collaborating with the editor, and this included the suppression of texts, the putting aside of pictures
which confused the line she was trying to construct. Furthermore, people had to be chased endlessly
for their promised material or for a new bit of material to fit the emerging editing pattern”. See:
Annie Pedret, CIAM and the Emergence of Team X Thinking. PhD Diss., MIT, 2001. Chapter 10:
“Team 10 historicized”, pp. 229-232.

115
 model –and the role of architecture within it- had raised among the English
youth. Hence, even if Peter Smithson’s claim that Swedish architecture “had
such an influence in Britain after the war because it was just about the only
thing being built”60 may have been an exaggeration based on personal bias,
the case was that Sweden had remained one of the few European countries
to build throughout the entire war period ‑while, in most other countries
the building industry had ground to a halt. At any rate, Swedish influence in
Britain had found plenty of manifestations. It had first materialized during
the 1930’s, when the British architectural scene was still largely imperme-
able to the modernist experiments being carried out in Germany, France,
Holland or Switzerland. Later, when The Architectural Review published
Sven Backström’s “A Swede Looks at Sweden” (1943), Swedish architecture
was cast in Britain as a softened modernism, according to which “one had
to build for human beings as they are, not as they ought to be”. 61 After the
war important articles on Sweden’s New Empiricism were published again
in The Architectural Review by Eric de Maré and J. M. Richardson, in what,
by then, had become a partisan commitment by the editors of the journal to
a regionally inflected (i.e.: English) version of modern architecture.62 Within
the ranks of the profession, the influence of New Empiricism made itself
visible thanks to the alignment of an entire section of the London County
Council architecture office with its principles –the most salient consequence
of which was the design of the East Section of the Alton Estate in Roehampton,
London. Finished between 1958 and 1959, at Roehampton (Figs. 8, 9 and 10)
the ideological struggles of the London architecture scene had been given

Fig. 8 - Alton Estate, Roehampton, London 1958.

60.  Quoted in the preface to “The Shift” (1980).

61.  Sven Backström, “A Swede Looks at Sweden”, Architectural Review (9/1943): 80. Reprinted in
Joan Ockmann, Architecture Culture 1943-1965.

62.  See: Eric de Maré, “The New Empiricism. The Antecedents and Origins of Sweden’s Latest Style”,
The Architectural Review Vol. 103 No. 613 (1/1948): 9; J. M. Richards, “The New Empiricism.
Sweden’s Latest Style”, The Architectural Review Vol. 101 (6/1947): 199-204. This article includes
images of Erskine’s self-built hut in Lissma. On the polemic between The Architectural Review’s
advocacy of “Englishness”, and Architectural Design’s openness to foreign affiliations, see: M.
Christine Boyer, “An Encounter with History: The postwar debate between the English Journal
of Architectural Review and Architectural Design (1945-1960)”, in Max Risselada, Dirk van den
Heuvel and Gijs de Waal (eds.), “Team 10. Keeping the Language of Modern Architecture Alive”,
Proceedings of the Conference Organized by The Faculty of Architecture, Delft University of
Technology. Chair of Architecture and Housing. 5th and 6th of January 2006.

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precise shape in the uneasy coexistence of two sets of buildings; the west
section, which responded to the interests and sensibilities of the so‑called
“hards” -who paid tribute to the post-war architecture of Le Corbusier’s Unité
d’ Habitation in Marseille-, and a second group, designed by the “softs”, in
the spirit of New Empiricism. Renouncing the separation of building and
ground, the exaggerated symbolism of communal space represented by access
decks, the flat roofs, the expression of structure, and the usage of materials
“as found”, Alton East resonated with some of the more conservative critics
who had shown an aversion to interwar continental modernism due to its
lack of attention to local traditions.63 They had found Empiricism to be more
in accordance with the picturesque image of traditional English towns and
gardens, heralding a connection to the newly revived Townscape Movement.

In this context, Erskine’s work grew increasingly relevant. 64 As opposed to

the founding members of Team 10, Erksine had already amassed a significant
portfolio of built projects in Sweden by the time of the first “official” meetings
of the group in preparation for the 1956 CIAM congress in Dubrovnik.65 His
architectural and political leitmotifs, however, had not been a‑priori articu-
lated in writing, as had been the case with more vocal members of Team 10
such as Jaap Bakema, Aldo Van Eyck, and the Smithsons. Aside from a few

Fig. 9 - Alton Estate - West Section. Roehampton, London 1958.

63.   See Reyner Banham, The New Brutalism (New York, 1966): 11.

64.  In hindsight, British critic Charles Jencks affirmed that “Erskine’s contributions to recent
architecture have been immense. He has realized the trends toward community building which so
many have asked for: the desire for a village scale, for a mixture of new and old buildings, for semi-
private and controllable space, for ´low-rise high-density´ and cheerful inexpensive architecture;
the practice of participation and the resettlement of an existing community on its own turf. For such
reasons the ´Byker Wall’ may exert as much influence on the next generation of architects as the
Weissenhof settlement of the 20s did on Modern Architecture”; “Introduction”, in Architectural
Design Vol. 47 (11-12/1977): 753.

65.  According to Mats Egelius, “over 30 of his own projects were completed before he was 40” (that
is, by 1954), Architectural Design Vol. 47 (11-12/1977): 761.

117
 Fig. 10 - Alton Estate. Comparison of east and west section typologies. Source: AAJ 1957.

letters in Swedish newspapers, none of the authoritative bibliographies on

Erskine lists significant texts by him published prior to 1970. Despite this
scarcity of published writings –which should not be surprising, for he, in fact,
deemed Team 10 meetings to be “too theoretical”- Erskine shared most of
the key preoccupations of Team 10. This was recognized by the Committee of
Coordination in charge of organizing CIAM ’59, who extended him an invita-
tion to participate in the eighth-day conference of the meeting, but also in
the official publications edited by Alison Smithson on the work of Team 10 in
1960, 1962, 1964, and 1968.66 However, as pointed out in one of the earliest
publications of his work in England, Erksine was not “a particularly articulate
person” and had to “rely on his own buildings to speak for themselves”. 67
We, in turn, must rely on a heterogeneous array of sources in order to clarify
the relationship between Team 10’s stated agenda and Erskine’s interests.

66. In the 1962 edition of the Team 10 Primer, Erksine is listed on the main credits page, yet his
contribution is limited to two drawings. Given the esthetic remove at which Erskine stood vis-a-vis
most of the other Team 10 members, the prominent position accorded to him by Alison Smithson’s
editorial hand could be construed as an attempt on the part of Team 10 to appear as being composed
not just of theoreticians but also of accomplished, prolific practitioners. See: Alison Smithson (ed.)
Team 10 Primer (1962): 568, 573. After 1960 Erskine became a regular participant in Team 10
meetings.

67. Malcom Andrews, “The Work of Ralph Erksine”, Architectural Association Journal (5/1958):
226-247.

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These sources include a number of published interviews, an important, if

singular, essay presented on the occasion of his acceptance of the RIBA Gold
Medal (1987), a handful of pieces by contemporary critics, and the written
testimony of some of his collaborators. Most of these sources characterize
Erskine –perhaps too unproblematically- in approximately the same terms
as those he himself used to refer to his work: humanist, romantic, pragmatic,
democratic, down-to-earth, sensitive, etc. Rejecting what was deemed to be
an overly pompous, intellectual and formalistic modernism, Erskine is cast
as a pragmatic architect concerned much more with the reception of his work
by laypeople –i.e.: users-, than with the vicissitudes of its production or with
its critical assessment by his peers. While a concern with identification, com-
munity building, human scale, and an opposition to functional zoning are
some of the threads linking Erksine to the core of Team 10, his focus on the
importance of the socialization of his work (including not only user involve-
ment, but also a permeable relationship to his clients) and his enthusiasm for
the picturesque and for the incidental, are features that set him apart from
the ideological tutorship of his English, Dutch or French counterparts. In any
case, by the 1960’s Erskine had designed and built enough for his work to
have become the accumulation of different “stages” each exhibiting specific
influences and accents. The important housing project for the Brittgården
area in Tibro (Figs. 11 and 12) presented at the 1962 meeting of Team 10, held
at Royaumont, for example, displayed an unusual combination of modernist
traits, including buildings raised on pilotis, maisonette dwellings, and deck
access, with a range of building typologies that departed both the schematic
interwar zeilenbau layouts and the low-density organizations typical of the
German siedlungen. Bringing together three and four-story slabs of different
profiles and shapes, with single family house-types, surrounding courtyards
and gardens of varying scales, Erskine’s project appeared to place empha-
sis on the definition of squares as the main device of socialization, rather
than following the more topical revivalist tendencies that advocated the
primacy of the street –in this, he advanced a complex understanding of city
morphology that resonated with the American Neighborhood Unit Theory,
while offering an early concept of fragmentation as the operative means for
urban development.

In general, the architectural devices employed by Erskine in order to mobi-

lize diversity and identification were unique in their reluctance to accept the
reduction and rationalization of all the elements into the sort of systematic,
repetitive compositions that most of the core members of Team 10 had es-
poused. As critics and colleagues have noted, his pursuit of heterogeneity
hinged upon a “medieval” imaginary that merged together resources from
Raymond Unwin’s town planning principles, from German expressionism,
Scandinavian functionalism, Wrightian organicism, as well as from an interest
in vernacular constructions on the extreme north of Europe.68 His large scale

68.  In his apprenticeship at Louis de Soissons’ office, before moving to Sweden, Erskine had
participated in the project for Welwyn, one of the first built projects that followed the principles of

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 Fig. 11 - Ralph Erskine. Housing in Tibro, Sweden (1958-1959).

projects frequently relied on a compositional technique in which typologically

discrete fragments were set in close proximity, and often massaged into conti-
nuity and formal coherence. Likewise, Erksine achieved planimetric diversity
by exploiting the junctures and seams between grids of varying orientation, or
by providing buffer spaces between Cartesian and curvilinear organizations.
As opposed to English Brutalism ‑where the material expression of buildings
was dictated by a constructional logic- Erskine’s envelopes grew less concerned
with the projection of an internal coherence than with appropriating local
iconographies or with endowing surfaces with an externally coherent visual
language –a reaffirmation of the traditional need autonomize the envelope
from the interior life of the building. Thus, his confidence in the efficacy of
“sheddery and pergolation” (the expression belongs to Reyner Banham 69) in
the project for Byker was simultaneously an attempt to reach out to certain
local habits (real or imagined), and to multiply the depth and complexity of
the visual field to almost kaleidoscopic levels. With the advent of the 1960’s,
the increasing autonomy of Erskine’s repertoire of techniques for creating a
complex visual field revealed his sensitivity for the sea-change that was about
to take place in architectural culture. When facing a design challenge of the
scale of Byker (more than 2000 dwellings and xx hectares), Erskine seems
to have come to the conclusion that the organization of program through
rhythmic repetition and variation was not capable, by itself, of rendering the
picturesque diversity that the urban condition was calling for. Even though
Byker incorporates a number of themes harvested by Erskine over the 25
years that preceded it,70 the introduction of overlapping layers containing

the Garden City Movement.

69.  See: “The Great Wall of Tyne”, in New Society (2/1975).

70.  The building-as-perimeter-wall typology, as a framing device and as an identity generator, is a

case in point. It had been suggested already in his late 1950’s studies for a sub-arctic city, and later
built in his project for the remote mining town of Svappavara in northern Sweden. Mats Egelius
points to the utilization of a similar typology by Alison and Peter Smithson in their competition-

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Fig. 12 - Ralph Erskine. Housing in Tibro, Sweden (1958-1959).

Source: Mats Egelius (1990).

visual information, such as graphics, lettering, color-coding, shape-coding,

material texture, collage, etc. represents an escalation of his belief in the
autonomy of the architectural envelope. In resonance with the otherwise
reviled postulates of Robert Venturi, since the early 1970’s, the growing
pressure of the “urban program” begins to make itself felt on the design for
Byker, as the figurative dimension of quasi-pop graphics is introduced in
what amounts to a recognition of an urban monumentality, successful in its
avoidance of iconographies reminiscent of institutional power.

Systematizing Tendencies. Towards a dissolution of the object.

Cluster Housing. Shortly after winning their first important commission –the
competition for the Hunstanton Modern Secondary School (1949)-, Alison
and Peter Smithson broadened their formal repertoire, embracing what they
called “a random aesthetic”, in their urban schemes. “What we are after” –they
wrote in 1957- “is something more complex, and less geometric. We are more
concerned with ‘flow’ than with ‘measure’. We have to create architecture and
town planning which, through built form, can make meaningful the change,
the growth, the flow, the vitality of community”. 71 This evolution involved
a critique of the 1920’s orthogonal urbanism of Le Corbusier and a subtle

entry project for Berlin Haupstadt (1958). See: Mats Egelius, Ralph Erskine, Architect (Stockholm:
Byggförlaget, 1990): 83. A similar principle was deployed in the urban projects of Jakob Bakema,
also in the late 1950’s. His typology was named “corewall” buildings. See: Team 10 Primer: 560-61.

71. “Le Corbusier’s dream of a Ville Radieuse: the plans move us as little as the pattern on the
paper cloth at the Vieux Paris, which is indeed where it may have originated”; Cluster Housing,
Architectural Review (11/1957).

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 approximation to the opposing camp of “the softs”. The hinge in their early
career seems to have lain somewhere near 1952, when the ideas that shaped
the competition project for Golden Lane were generalized and tested at city
scale (Fig. 13).72 Although the term ‘cluster’ was formally introduced a few
years later, the concept appears to have crystallized at this point. It designated
a new organizational prototype giving “an indication, a sign, of a new sort of
community structure”. Further developed in the competition entry project
for the renewal of the center of Berlin (1957), the cluster, through its seem-
ing informality, represented an early attempt to give force to the expression
of individuality in the context of collective organizations. In the Smithson’s
own words, its aim was to “to give choice; to make places that are meaning-
fully differentiated; to offer true alternative life-styles”. 73 In contrast to the
formulations of the previous generation, the force behind the cluster lay in
the ideas of looseness of grouping and ease of communication, the operative
assumption being that no singular formal order was able to capture precisely
the functional organization of community, which was deemed inherently
malleable and dynamic.74 Therefore, redundancy and informality came to be

Fig. 13 - Alison and Peter Smithson. Golden Lane urban prototype (1952).

72.  The diagrams and drawings for Golden Lane were published originally in The Architects’
Yearbook in 1953, and since then, re-published in numerous occasions. A comprehensive,
retrospective presentation with expanded commentary by the authors can be found in: Alison and
Peter Smithson, The Charged Void: Architecture (New York: The Monacelli Press, 2001): 83-95.

73.  “Cluster Housing”, cit. “The word ‘cluster’, was first introduced at CIAM X in Dubrovnik in 1956...
meaning a specific pattern of association, has been introduced to replace such group concepts as
‘house, street, district, city’ (community sub-divisions), or ‘isolate, village, town, city’ (group entities),
which are too loaded with historical overtones. Any coming together is ‘cluster’: cluster is a sort of
clearing-house term during the period of creation of new types”. Alison and Peter Smithson, Urban
Structuring. Studies of Alison and Peter Smithson (London: Studio Vista, 1967): 33. Previously
published under the title Uppercase 3 (London: Whitefriar Press, 1960).

74.  These assumptions were expressed in the text accompanying the first publication of Golden Lane.
See: “An Urban Project. Golden Lane Housing”, in Architects’ Yearbook no. 5 (1953): 49.

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seen as basic premises for the success of any urban organization.

One of the most significant implications of the cluster was the idea of a new
kind of repetitious order, held together by a continuous, elevated urban
network. In order to explicate this notion we may rely on Peter Eisenman’s
tracing of it. In his only published discussion of the work of Alison and Peter
Smithson, Eisenman reads the project for Golden Lane within the context of
the Modern Movement’s reaction to the disruptive effect of one of the most
emblematic technological events in the early twentieth century, i.e. the rise
of motor car transportation in cities.75 Eisenman argues that what matters
to an architectural analysis is not just the fact of the irruption of the car, but
the responses and attitudes with which it was received. Although the latter
were changing and ambiguous, he goes on to say, the critical reformulation
of the concept of the street runs as a continuous thread connecting the early
speculations of Edgar Chambless (Fig. 14), Auguste Perret, and Le Corbusier.
It was the latter, however, who most poignantly investigated the possibilities
of separating pedestrian and vehicular traffic, and hence the obliged refer-
ence in considering the re-appropriation of the idea by the Smithsons in the
1950s. According to Eisenman, it is not the à redents typology that we should
have to look at –despite its overt formal resemblances- in seeking precedents
for the Golden Lane project, but the 1925 version of the Immeuble Villas,
with its bi-directional system of bridges, which created a gridded network of
elevated pedestrian circulation (Fig. 15). Further references are to be found
in the project of Alison and Peter Smithson to the “building as street” image
employed by Le Corbusier in his proposals for Algiers and Rio de Janeiro.

Fig. 15 - Le Corbusier. Networked version of the Immeubles Villa.

Source: Urbanisme (1925).

75.  Peter Eisenman, “From Golden Lane to Robin Hood Gardens, or If you Follow the Yellow Brick
Road, it May not Lead to Golder’s Green”, Oppositions 1 (9/1973): 27-56. Published previously in a
slightly abridged form as “Robin Hood Gardens, London, E14”, in Architectural Design (9/1972):
588-592.

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 But the operation spearheaded by the Smithsons is not just a clever manipula-
tion of those images. For, despite their appropriation of abundant Corbusian
DNA, the re-deployment of the pedestrian deck is charged here with a new
set of potentials and responsibilities. Although Eisenman is right in seeing
the project as an escalation in the modernist trend toward the urbanization
of architecture with its attendat subversion of traditional private/public
demarcations, it is important to notice that the Smithsons had abandoned
here notions of functional classification and architectural totality that were
inherent in the some of the earlier Corbusian prototypes. 76 Social and mate-
rial cohesion were effectively pursued in the project for Golden Lane through
the modernist “motif” of conflating two formerly separate and even opposed
entities, the building and the street (Fig. 16). But the meaning attached to
the concept of the street (and the organizational consequences derived from
it), as well as the formal relationship that binds street and dwelling together
were both novel contributions by the Smithsons.

Fig. 16 - Alison and Peter Smithson. Golden Lane. Coposite plan of deck levels 1, 3, and 5.
Source: The Charged Void. Architecture (2001).

In their conception, the building’s main trait of singularity with respect to

the city is the exclusion of the car. Beyond that, building and city acquire the
potential to become functionally indistinct, the latter effectively multiplying
its levels in order to restore the dwelling unit to a direct relationship with
social space. Even if the notion of the cluster was tested in other projects
apart from Golden Lane, it is here where an elucidation of its consequences
can be found in its purest state. These can be summarized as follows: 1)

76.  Many of these radical propositions be dropped during the following decade. The concept of an
open architectural form, for example, will no longer play a role when the Smithsons finally obtain
the commission for Robin Hood Gardens. Peter Eisenman states that the evolution between these
two projects is far from linear, and even retrogressive, as when the systems-aesthetic developed in
Golden Lane is replaced by a neo-classical rhetoric at play in projects such as Mehring Platz and
Robin Hood Gardens.

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Increased associational possibilities based on a topology of bifurcations, or

nodes, along the pedestrian decks, 2) Greater geometric malleability and
sensitivity, allowing the project to grow into a network that coherently absorbs
topographic specificities such as existing street patterns, landmark buildings,
water courses, etc., 3) Visual connectivity between the “streets in the air”
and the urban space, 4) Denial of the formal completeness of the object as
a unit of urban composition, based on the overall openness of the scheme,
as implied, on one level, by the suggestion that the building can be in state
of permanent evolution and expansion, and, on another, by the provision
of excess space for the dwellings to grow and be customized by their users,
5) Downplaying the dialectic of structure and infill (Le Corbusier’s “bott-
lerack” metaphor for Marseille, or his megastructural approach for Argel),
in favor of a unified rhetoric of systems –or, as Eisenman would have it,
“rather than an architecture conceived of as a relationship between spatial
elements, there is now a relationship of spatial systems (or a relationship
between relationships).”77

With regards to the possibilities of social differentiation, the emphasis placed

by the Smithsons on notions of movement, flow, and continuity as part of
a systematic urban-architectural thinking, did not preclude the formation
of nuclei of diversified interaction. The introduction of above-mentioned
“t-shaped” bifurcations in the pedestrian circulation decks would not only
ensure the connectivity of the city at various levels at once; it was also meant
to increase the availability of choice, allowing the formation of different
quarters and districts, each of them bearing distinct characteristics.

However, formal openness did not imply formal indeterminacy. Such position
by the Smithsons marked an important point of divergence from proposals
advanced by other architects who relied heavily on the notion of rule-systems
-such as Yona Friedman- or on the concept of patterns -such as Christopher
Alexander in the early 1970’s. A shown by Le Corbusier’s botched attempt to
implement his proposal for the reconstruction Saint-Dié in 1946, the idea of
the city as a tightly controlled master-plan had fallen into disrepute. Yet, how
its evolution was to be kept under some form of organic control would be
the object of a heated polemic. The problem boiled down to the question of
whether a “blind” -i.e.:abstract- approach was capable by itself of delivering
consistency, or if a different form of guidance was called for. In retrospect,
Peter Smithson conceded that the notion of an evolving urbanism was pos-
sible only under certain conditions:

77.  This paragraph is not included in the original version of the essay published in Architectural
Design; it was added for publication in the developed version that came out in Oppositions in 1973.
This final version of the essay was reprinted in Alison and Peter Smithson. A Critical Anthology,
edited by Max Risselada (Barcelona: Ediciones Polígrafa, 2011), from where the quotation has been
taken (p. 220).

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 “The greatest difficulty in working towards urban forms
that can accept growth and change is that of commu-
nicating the general intention to those who will follow.
The apparent unwillingness or inability of many people
to accept general rules might make an open-ended ap-
proach impossible except as an aesthetic in the hands of
a single practitioner. Yet for a considerable period, the
orders of architecture were so universally accepted that
they made the whole of the built environment cohesive,
no matter how many hands contributed. Throughout our
work we have thought about a plan that could present a
non-rigid idea, a way of indicating by means of draw-
ings, a direction that an urban form could take. These
drawings could suggest possibilities that might accrue
or become obvious only when the first portion had been
built”.78

Master-planning versus Dissociative design

In the pursuit of spatial differentiation, the idea of the cluster was also in-
strumental in the work of the French “leg” of Team 10, the office of Candilis,
Josic and Woods -none of whom, paradoxically, was French by origin. US-born
Shadrach Woods (1923-1973), the most theoretically prolific of the group,
as well as one of the most active members of Team 10, wrote two important
essays published in the French magazine Le Carré Bleu between 1960 and
1961, in which he imbricated the cluster with his own organizational tropes:
“stem” and “web”. In what is probably one of the most cogent architectural
manifestos of the 1960’s, Woods emphasized the irrelevance of the plan masse79
as an organizational device, given its excessive reliance on the architect’s
personal expression and its inability to articulate the temporal dimension
of “habitat”. The plan masse could not embody anything but “an expressive
arrangement” of buildings, devoid of any sensitivity towards change, growth,
mobility and transformation.80 To counter this, Woods advanced the idea
that habitat needed to be structured by elements differentiated according
to the varying temporalities of its development. Thus, stem was proposed
as a branching linear organization that allowed both mobility and general
comprehensibility, while “freeing” housing to respond to changing patterns
of inhabitation. Likewise, web -which was implemented most significantly
in the competition project for the reconstruction of the center of Frankfurt

78.  The Charged Void. Urbanism. 2005: 56.

79.  In French in the original, translatable as site plan, or master plan.

80.  In Team 10 Primer Georges Candilis is quoted as stating, in 1960, that “at Bagnols-sur-Ceze we
tried... to avoid uniformity and symmetry, to find an organic disposition of these elements, which
is usually, traditionally, the result of a long development in time... it was necessary to give specific
character ot the town, to eliminate the appearance of uniformity, to make the city come alive”.
Clearly the issue of diversity could not be settled even within the ranks of a single architecture office.
See: Team 10 Primer (1965): 37.

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and in the building for Berlin Free University- consisted in a bidirectional

infrastructural grid that permitted maximum flexibility and functional inter-
connectivity; in Woods’ own words, “web is a way to establish a large-scale
order, which, by its nature, makes possible individual expression on a smaller
scale within a total context”.81

In these propositions, two ideas about formal diversity were conjoined. On

one hand, an interest was implied in the capacity of development to freely
generate a heterogeneous environment “by itself”, over the course of time;
this was clearly aligned with the broadly shared fascination -not only by Team
10 but by mainstream architectural criticism- with vernacular housing and
so-called “primitive cultures” that emerged in the early 1950’s and became
institutionalized with the publication of Bernard Rudofsky’s Architecture
without Architects in 1965. Indeed, the habitat of Saharan and sub-Saharan
cultures had been introduced at CIAM IX, Aix-en-Provence in 1953, and had
remained a source of inspiration -and of professional commissions- of the
early ATBAT and then of the office of Candilis, Josic and Woods. 82

The other idea, “design by dissociation”, was connected with Louis Kahn’s
separation between served and servant spaces -as acknowledged by Woods
himself.83 The emergence of a host of similar conceptualizations can be inter-
preted in light the criticism of the aforementioned autonomy and stability of
the architectural object. This impulse towards a greater fragmentation and
multiplicity of architectural form became widespread in the 1950’s. Closer
to an expressionist rhetoric that to the pursuit of a logic of systems, even
James Stirling’s Red Trilogy has been frequently discussed in this same
vein.84 By the early 1960’s this critique had taken hold in the work of Hab-
raken (who had declared his indebtedness to Le Corbusier’s Plan Obus), and
was later taken to futuristic formulations by Archigram, Kenzo Tange, and
Kisho Kurokawa, among many others. In 1965, Reyner Banham was already
outlining a history of this dissociative design. Furnishing a pragmatic ratio-
nale to the rethoric of incompleteness, he argued that the openness made

81.  Shadrach Woods, “Urban Environment. The Search for System,” in John Donat (ed.), World
Architecture One (Studio Books: London, 1964): 151-155.

82.  The interest in “primitive” cultures that permeates architectural discourse in the 1950’s is part
and parcel of a general move away from the dominating Eurocentric perspectives, that goes hand
in hand with the processes of decolonization that ensued WWII. This movement was strongly
influenced by the work of Claude Lévi-Strauss, in particular Tristes Tropiques (1955) and Structural
Anthropology (1958). Not coincidentally much of the 1960’s architectural avant-garde was theorized
as “Structuralist”. See: Arnulf Lüchinger, Structuralism in Architecture and Urban Planning (Karl
Krämer Verlag: Stuttgart, 1981). See also: Karin Jaschke, “Aldo Van Eyck and the Dogon Image”, cit.

83.  “A Core is first determined by abstracting from the programme those elements which are easily
defined (entry, kitchen, stairs, bath), then the rooms are clustered around these services. Servant and
served, as Louis Kahn puts it are defined, and the core brings clarity and organization to the cluster”.
S. Woods, op. cit., 152.

84.  See: Peter Eisenman, “Real and English. The Destruction of the Box I.”, in Oppositions 4
(10/1974): 5-34.

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 possible by the separation between stable (or structural) components, and
repetitive changeable elements could be explained, at least in England, by a
“desire to be cautiously non-committal among the uncertainties of post-war
reconstruction”.85 More fundamentally, however, he emphasized the conver-
gence of ideas such as endlessness, lack of hierarchy -as in a Jackson Pollock
painting, where “every one bit of the picture is as good and as important as
any other”-, decentralization -as in Park Hill-, and those of repetition and
transportability at the scale of an entire unit of inhabitation (as was the aim
of Alison and Peter Smithsons “House of the Future”, 1956, not to mention
Le Corbusier’s Unité d’ Habitation); this latter condition being expressive of
a “psychological and esthetic break with architecture’s time-honored roots
in the ground”. As soon as several of these units were assembled together,
Banham stated, the problem of services and communication infrastructure
emerged, from whence mere aggregation had to give way to the appearance
of a “trunk, stem, support, etc.”.

2.4 Heterogeneity and the Fragment

“Does anyone suppose that, in real life, answers to any of the great questions
that worry us today are going to come out of homogeneous settlements?”

Jane Jacobs, 1961.86

By the end of the decade of 1950, the issue of heterogeneity had not only been
identified as one of the most significant architectural and urbanistic problems
of the age: the seeds of its various formal solutions had also been planted and
its space of possibilities vigorously explored through design and discursive
speculation. Architectural heterogeneity had come to be framed as the inevitable
response that the discipline had to deliver to society in the face of the latter’s
accelerated urbanization and growth. Concerned with problems of housing and
inhabitation at increasingly larger scales, its challenge lay in finding formulae
to articulate the subject of architecture as a multiplicity and to emphasize the
notion of individuality, while producing an integrated sequence of ascending
levels of organization that would address the various scales through which the
community could constitute itself as an internally differentiated entity. As will
be discussed further on with the help of Paolo Virno, the figure of the people as
“the convergence of the multitude into the one” was gradually supplanted by
its conception as “the explosion of the one into the multiple”, the expression
of which Aldo Van Eyck adequately explored in his quest for an “aesthetics of
number”.87

85.  Reyner Banham, “A Clip-on Architecture”, Architectural Design (11/1965): 534-535.

86.   Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (Vintage Books: New York, 1961): 448.

87.  Ample evidence of the breadth of the formal responses to collective housing appearing in Britain
in the late 50’s, and especially in the 1960’s, can be found in Glendinning and Muthesius, op. cit.,
chapter 19, “Infinite Possibilities of Design in the 1960s”: 132-150. They claim that “from the late
fifties, we witness an avoidance of simple definitions, as well as of large, formal geometrical design
statements. There now seemed an abundance of forms, and endless variety in layout and detail”, p.
132. Our hypothesis is that even if this variety was actualized during the 1960’s, the principles that
made it possible had already been established a few years earlier.

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In parallel, actual construction of mass housing in the form of slabs, tower

blocks, estates, grands ensembles, and new towns, had begun to move forward
at breakneck speed throughout most of northern and central Europe. Despite
the early shortages of labor and materials, the pace of construction was such
that, by the early 1960’s, there already existed enough built evidence for an
initial measurement of its social and psychological consequences, and for its
main lines of architectural evolution to be gauged. The increasingly negative
outcome of such evaluations is one of the fundamental reasons why, precisely
at this time, the discourse of user autonomy begins to take shape, providing
leverage to the critics of modernism. In the chapter that follows the thesis will
turn to the analysis of developments that, in the course of the 1960’s, sought
to re-ground architecture in the context of academic and scientific settings
that had been jettisoned by the avant-garde during the first half of the 20th
century. Those frameworks offered new possibilities for the elaboration and
confrontation of theories of form based on information science, cybernetics,
gestalt psychology and a conception of the human being as a “symbolic animal”
-in the words of Ernst Cassirer- as opposed to organismic views that lay at the
base of behaviorist predicaments. Harbingers of a cultural shift away from the
operational directness that characterized Team 10 thinking, said frameworks
expressed the complexity the new cognitive challenges faced by architecture as
it slid gradually into the post-modern moment.88

Before moving in that direction, however, we will explore two texts that emerged
in the first years of the 1960’s, signaling a synthesis and possible closure to
the period immediately preceding them, and pointing to a new cultural and
disciplinary context. What shall become evident through their examination is
that the continuity that postwar architectural culture had established with the
interwar period could no longer be prolonged. Even though the ideas forwarded
by Team 10 would continue to proliferate, they had been molded in the
immediate aftermath of WWII, and were still indebted to the tenets of Modern
Movement as their unquestionable matrix. Hence, at the dawn of the 1960’s the
conditions were set for a radical reevaluation of the principles of the Modern
Movement. While the consequences of such re-evaluation for design would
begin to come to fruition only after 1966/67 -the years when Aldo Rossi, Robert
Venturi, and Manfredo Tafuri published their seminal texts-, it is possible to
say that the formal universe of the postwar architectural imagination had been
explored and theorized extensively -perhaps exhausted- by the early years of
the decade.

Fumihiko Maki and the Multiplicity Framework

In offering a clear-sighted map of the problem at hand and its formal solutions,

88.  Giancarlo De Carlo recalls how, in Team 10’s meeting in Bonnieux (1977), Ralph Erksine
“satirized our discussions on about architectural form, saying we had become oldsters because we
had gone back to talking about these things. No one cared more about form than he did, but he
retained the modesty of the pioneers. It was better to leave the talk about form to the impudent
abuse of academics: to serious architects, architectural form was and had to remain implicit”.
Clearly, this view was not held by the polemicists that broke into the field of architecture after
spending several years preparing their doctoral dissertations in universities such as Cambridge. See:
Clelia Tuscano, “How can you do without history? Interview with Giancarlo de Carlo”, in Team 10
1953-1981. In Search of a Utopia of the Present (Rotterdam: Nai Publishers, 2006).

129
 the first text that might be quoted to support this hypothesis is Fumihiko
Maki’s Investigations in Collective Form. Published in 1964, this essay has an
earlier origin in Maki and Masato Ohtaka’s bilingual text Toward Group Form
which appeared in Metabolism: The proposals for a new urbanism, in 1960.89
Maki, who had moved from his native Japan to the United States in 1952 to
pursue studies at Cranbrook and Harvard, later forged close links with the
core members of Team 10, participating in their 1960 meeting at Bagnols-sur-
Cèze, and receiving invitations to their conferences in Berlin (1965) and Urbino
(1966).90 Importantly, he had also attended the First Urban Design Conference
organized by José Luis Sert at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design in 1956,
where he “was especially impressed by Jane Jacobs’s passionate plea on behalf
of endangered neighborhood districts in New York”.91 In these texts, Maki sets
out to systematize the known methods for assembling large, complex urban
structures, suggesting that the emerging idea of group-form -with its attendant
methodological, practical and visual implications- was more adequate to the
expression of a highly individualized collective than any of the previously
known ones.

Following an introductory diagnosis where he asserts that “we lack an adequate

visual language to cope with the superhuman scale of modern highways sys-
tems and views from airplanes”, and that, “the visual and physical concepts at
our disposal have to do with single buildings, and with closed compositional
means for organizing them”, Maki discusses the Beaux Arts-inspired method
he calls “compositional form”.92 With its emphasis on hierarchy, axiality,
individuality of each component element, and static approach, the city of
Brasilia, the Rockefeller Center in New York, and the Temple of Horyuji in
Japan are presented as salient exemplars of such method. If the latter has
pre-modern origins, the second method analyzed by Maki is clearly repre-
sentative of twentieth century technological utopias. “Urban designers”,
he claims, “are attracted to the megastructure concept because it offers a
legitimate way to order massive grouped functions”. Examples discussed
include Kenzo Tange’s project for a 25000 people community developed at
MIT, and Kurokawa’s Agricultural City. The problem with the megastructural
approach, for Maki, lies in the fact that its hierarchical separation of rapid
and slow shifting functions may not accurately reflect the reality of urban
change. For instance, the notion that circulation systems last longer than
structures for habitation cannot be affirmed with certainty. It is this rigidity
of the megastructural system that represents its greatest flaw. Finally, group-

89.   Kiyonori Kikutake, Noboru Kawazoe, Masato Ohtaka, Fumihiko Maki and Noriaki Kurokawa,
Metabolism: The Proposals for a New Urbanism (Japan: Yazuko Kawazoe, 1960). Quoted by Joan
Ockman (ed.), Architecture Culture 1943-1968: 320.

90.      At the Bagnols-sur-Cèze meeting Maki first became acquainted with Van Eyck’s influential
Orphanage project in Amsterdam. See: Fumihiko Maki, Nurturing Dreams. Collected essays on
architecture and the city. Edited by Mark Mulligan. Forward by Edward Sekler (Cambridge: MIT
Press, 2008): 15-22.

91.   See: Fumihiko Maki, “Fragmentation and Friction as Urban Threats. The Post-1956 City” in Alex
Krieger and William S. Saunders (eds.), Urban Design (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
2009): 89.

92.   Investigations in Collective Form: 4.

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form is the approach where organization “evolves from a system of genera-

tive elements in space”.93 Whereas the two previous methods are rooted in
modern and pre-modern disciplinary knowledge, the concept of group-form
exhibits an interest in vernacular urban formations that foreshadows the
upcoming regionalist sensibility. In group-form human scale is recuperated
through the sequential deployment of small repetitive elements. The image
of a Japanese linear village organized along a winding road exemplifies the
prototypical nature of an open compositional system that admits change
-even though the limits of such variability will remain undefined. Moreover,
whereas “the element in mega-form does not exist without a skeleton”, says
Maki, “the element and the growth pattern are reciprocal” in group-form,
“the element suggests a manner of growth, and that, in turn demands further
development of the elements, in a kind of feedback loop process”. 94 Here,
Maki relies directly on an emerging complexity paradigm that converges
with similar ideas, that would be expressed with even greater clarity and
poignancy by Jane Jacobs and, and few years later, by Robert Venturi. This
foresight is compounded by an acute awareness of the globalizing forces
affecting the development of architecture. But rather than striving to resist
these forces, his confidence on complexity and globalization goes so far as
to affirm that “homogenization of the environment is not, as many people
feel, the inevitable result of mass technology and communication. These
same forces can produce entirely new products.” 95 Group-form’s symbolism
ultimately achieves its political legitimacy through its origins in “people’s
architecture”; rather than resorting to institutional languages, or invoking
the imagery of leadership, it stands for values of democratic, progressive
and bottom-up politics.96 In this way, Maki makes a critical contribution to
the ongoing conceptualization of the modern figures individuality and paves
the way for their redefinition in increasingly active and autonomous terms.

Jane Jacobs and The Complexity Framework

Meanwhile, as Gordon Cullen published in England his Townscape, and
John Habraken’s Supports saw the light of day in its first Dutch edition, 1961
is also the year when Jane Jacobs makes her formal leap into the urbanistic
arena with The Death and Life of Great American Cities.97 In her critique of
modern town planning, Jacobs presents a conception of urbanity rooted in
the complex dynamics of economic and ecologic processes that would remain
a staple throughout her later writings on the city; these frameworks, in her
view, had been obfuscated by the previous generation’s obsessive focus on

93.   Investigations in Collective Form: 14.

94.   Investigations in Collective Form: 19.

95.   Investigations in Collective Form: 22.

96.   These positions are closely related to those defended by Aldo van Eyck, who copiously quotes
Maki and Ohtaka’s 1960 text in his essay “Steps towards a configurative discipline”, published in
Forum no. 3 (1962): 81-93.

97.   The writing of the book had begun in 1958. See: Alice Sparberg Alexiou, Jane Jacobs. Urban
Visionary (New Brunswick and London: Rutgers University Press, 2006): 68.

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 improving hygiene, circulatory efficiency, romantization of “nature”, and an
overall reliance on linear rationality. Seeding ideas that would have a sweeping
influence over the course of the following decades, her insights have since
then spread along a field spanning the extremes of advocacy planning and the
discourse of complexity, having been recognized as influential by economists
such as David Ellerman, architects such as Robert Venturi and Christopher
Alexander, and philosophers such as Manuel De Landa. Indeed, complexity
is dealt with explicitly by Jacobs in the concluding section of her book, where
the arguments on diversity and heterogeneity are set in relation to the “kind of
problem a city is”.98

In attacking modern town planning, Jacobs takes cues from Gordon Cullen and
Kevin Lynch, and incorporates some of the lessons of the Townscape movement
and of the Italian picturesque tradition into a theory of rational planning for
American cities. Jacobs’s argument is mounted on what she identifies as the
three main traditions of modern town planning: the Garden City, the City
Beautiful Movement, and CIAM’s principles, the latter being represented most
clearly in the Athens Charter and in Le Corbusier’s Radiant City. Jacobs’s line
of attack stands against all three planning ideologies’ mechanistic views on the
city. Each, in their own way, rejects basic tenets of traditional urbanity, such
as the mixture of uses, high density, and the street as the privileged locus and
articulator of social life. Zoning, traffic separation, and low density (or low
ground-plane occupancy) are identified as the dysfunctional devices of modern
urbanism. On a deeper level, however, the argument states that, within the
paradigm of complexity, order does not necessarily have to equate simplicity
or visual legibility. The apparent disorder of a fine-grained urban organization
is a key positive feature of cities, and their intricate orders “a manifestation of
freedom of people”. Here, Jacobs advocates the model of her esteemed Lower
Manhattan, the anti-urban being represented by the renewal initiatives of the
likes of Robert Moses, but also by the vernacular American urbanism of cities
such as Los Angeles and Las Vegas.99

98.   Although we do not have evidence to prove a strict causal relation, it is interesting to

note that Jacobs’ plea for heterogeneity in the city, and for complexity as a framework for its
conceptualization, are exactly simultaneous with the development, by Edward Lorenz, of the
mathematical explanation of non-periodic flows -i.e.: extremely heterogeneous patterns of
movement- in the earth’s atmosphere and in hydrodynamic systems in general. In a 1961 experiment
involving computer simulation of weather patterns, Lorenz came up with results that challenged the
notion of linearity between cause and effect. This behavior later came to be known commonly as “the
butterfly effect”. Referring to the extreme sensitivity displayed by complex systems towards initial
conditions, the idea of non-linear escalation of effects set the cornerstone of complexity science.
Jacobs would refer specifically to the scientific ideas of Lorenz in a much later book (published at
age 83), The Nature of Economies (New York: Modern Library, 2000): 133-147. We know, however,
that Jacobs was informed on the ongoing developments in information and complexity science,
by her quoting of the work of Dr. Warren Weaver, who had co-authored the influential article “A
Mathematical Theory of Communication” with Claude Shannon in 1948. A detailed treatment of
Jacobs’ relationship with complexity theory can be found in Peter L. Laurence, “Contradictions and
Complexities. Jane Jacobs’s and Robert Venturi’s complexity theories”, in Journal of Architectural
Education Vol. 59 No. 3 (2006): 49-60. For an overview of complexity theory and its origins, see:
James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science (New York: Open Road, 1987).

99.   It is here that the complexity framework enters into conflict with an ideology of the city.
Departing from this limited view, Venturi would later be able to read the vernacular landscape of Las
Vegas as a vital expression of the same complexity Jacobs had found in the city of New York.

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But, for our purposes, the most relevant aspect of Jacobs’ book lies in her
affirmation that the consequences of zoning, traffic separation, and low density,
are to be blamed for the emerging monotony of modernist urban space. From
this point of view, “The Conditions for City Diversity”, the book’s second section,
needs to be given special attention. In this long passage four conditions are
identified, each deserving its own chapter, as necessary to achieve the sought-
after diversity. Not surprisingly, these characteristics match precisely those of
the “lively” area where Jacobs resided in the city of New York: mixed uses, a
fine-grained, permeable circulatory structure, diversity of building ages, and
sufficient density. Jacobs’s claim that “the necessity for these conditions is the
most important point this book has to make”, warrants a detailed review of
those characteristics, the goal being to illustrate the various foundations on
which her notion of urban heterogeneity was to be constructed. It will be noted
that her conception of an ideal urban society has been sterilized of any inherent
social and political conflict; contrary to the suspicions expressed in the same
year by sociologist Herbert Gans about the feasibility of a productive encounter
between different social classes, her views are modeled on a social body that
appears to be conflict-free, at least if it were to conceived of in its “natural
state”. Paradoxically, it should also be noted that in critiquing the principles of
modern town planning and suggesting a precise series of “remedies” –as Lewis
Mumford sarcastically characterized them- to avert their consequences, the
much reviled deterministic stance of the modernist reformers is left unscathed.

Jacobs’ first concern regarding the production of diversity matches the Athens
Charter’s approach to the functional city in its assumption of the centrality of
“use”, but turns it on its head. She observes that any neighborhood100 must serve
more than two primary functions -such as offices, dwellings, and factories- with
different schedules, thus augmenting the possibilities for chance encounters,
financial sustainability, and a robust human ecology. A positive exemplar of
this situation is Hudson Street in Manhattan; a counter-example is represented
by the island’s financial district. In a successful mixture, primary uses function
as anchors. Their complementarity, schedule-wise, is fundamental. A fruitful
combination of primary uses creates a “secondary diversity” of subsidiary uses.
The more networked these uses are, the more successful the system becomes.

Secondly, the possibility of real heterogeneity hinges, for Jacobs, upon the
adequacy of physical infrastructure. It is not only a matter of mixing uses:
the form of the city must in itself have a degree of intricacy to allow for the
development of a diverse and efficacious -today some would say sustainable-
human ecology. A critical factor in that respect is the replacement of large city
blocks by smaller ones, resulting in the increase of the number of corners and
intersections. This shift is meant to enhance the chances for connectivity and
mingling, and therefrom, the likelihood that “pools of use” may emerge. It is
also conducive to affording a greater variety of movement paths, of encounters
and unforeseeable events. “Long blocks”, says Jacobs, “thwart the potential
advantages that cities offer to incubation, experimentation, and many small or
special enterprises, insofar as these depend upon drawing their customers or
clients from among much larger cross-sections of passing public. Long blocks

100.  The re-introduction of the neighborhood as a self-sufficient unit of analysis for a segment of the
city is in itself a significant departure from the modernist analytical approach based on functionally
complementary zones.

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 also thwart the principle that if city mixtures of use are to be more than a fiction
on maps, they must result in different people, bent on different purposes,
appearing at different times, but using the same streets”.101

If the first condition deals with program and the second with form, the third
one is about the diversity of time. The requirement for a close-grained mingling
of buildings of different ages and conditions (“plain, ordinary, low-value old
buildings, including some rundown old buildings”)102, is not presented as an
aesthetic demand for a romantic or rustic urban environment, but is justified
on the grounds that it leads to a greater economic diversity. The old, run-
down buildings will be more affordable, and thus amenable to occupation by
business of lesser yield: Jacobs call this “the economics of time”. City diversity
cannot be created through monopoly-planning: “cities need a mingling of old
buildings to cultivate primary diversity mixtures, as well as secondary diversity.
In particular, they need old buildings to incubate new primary diversity”.
Jacobs recognizes the implications brought about by this demand, in which the
problematic suggestion is contained that cities or urban neighborhoods cannot
be started anew.

The fourth condition is sufficient density. Despite its bad name, dwelling density
is a necessary condition for diversity, and not just for economic reasons. But the
relation between density and diversity is not linear because it is mediated by
other factors. For example, “no concentration of residence, however high, is
‘sufficient’ to generate diversity in regimented projects, because diversity has
been regimented out in any case”.103 Furthermore, high density must not be
confused with overcrowding, as was the case with Garden City planners. The
latter were lead to dismissing dense urban settlements due to their inability
to realize that overcrowding created unhealthy conditions, but this was not
directly implied by a dense ratio of land occupation. However, Jacobs argues,
city density values are a matter of performance, they cannot be dealt with in
abstract. Their highest and lowest values must be determined with respect to
the achievement (or frustration of) diversity within strictly local conditions.
“The reason dwelling densities can begin repressing diversity if they get too
high is this: At some point, to accommodate so many dwellings on the land,
standardization of the buildings must set in. This is fatal, because great diversity
in age and types of buildings has a direct, explicit connection with diversity
of population, diversity of enterprises and diversity of scenes”.104 Finally,
density must be set apart from the parameter of land occupancy, with which
it is often confused. If, overall, 70% land occupancy -as was the case in some
areas of the Greenwich Village- appears to be the highest acceptable mark, low
rates displayed by modernist schemes -like Stuyvesant Town, at 25% ground
coverage- must also be avoided as they imply higher buildings, and these mean
standardization and homogeneity.

Jacobs’ plea for diversity in the city would have remained ineffective had it not
been accompanied by an effort to dispel, what, in her view, amounted to myths

101.  Death and Life of Great American Cities, 183.

102.  Death and Life of Great American Cities, 187.

103.  Death and Life of Great American Cities, 205.

104.  Death and Life of Great American Cities, 212.

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conspiring against the value of heterogeneity. Her concern can be understood

in light of developments taking place in the historical and geographical context
in which the book was written. One need only be reminded of the late 1940’s
and 1950’s economic boom in the Unites States, and the ensuing explosion of
suburban life and urban-fringe development on a scale that had never been
witnessed. If the early twentieth century had introduced the idea of mechanical
repetition in the automotive industry with Fordism as its mode of production,
the end of WWII had spelled the equivalent rise of a new form of highly efficient
real estate developers, i.e., subdividers, able to deploy as many as 30 houses
per day -as was the case at the peak of production in William and Albert Levitt’s
17400 house subdivision called Island Trees, in Long Island, later renamed,
unimaginatively, Levittown.105 But the reasons behind the production of
these extremely homogenous suburbs -in Levittown not just the houses were
repeated ad nauseam in identical fashion, but their occupants belonged to
very similar income and age brackets-, are not only related to the development
of industrialized methods for construction (as was the case with the Levitts),
to the existence of an objective demand stemming from unfulfilled needs of
servicemen returning from the war, or to the advantageous financial conditions
set up by the federal government. Much of the history of suburban development
in the United States has its roots in the very notion of racial segregation and
establishment of all-white residential communities through the legal instrument
known as restrictive covenants, as proven, for example by Robert Fogelson’s
study of the creation of Palos Verdes Estate in California during the interwar
period.106

In addition to this specifically North American set of cultural and political

conditions, one must also be reminded that the images of rational, CIAM-
inspired urban planning that lay in the background were conspicuously devoid of
the small scale, intricate articulations that could have allowed the unrestrained
development of the liberal economic logic on which Jacobs’ notion of diversity
rested. It should come as no surprise, therefore, to discover that, vis-a-vis
the heavy state and corporate apparatuses to which Le Corbusier’s interwar
urbanism appealed, Jacobs’ economic model stood in clear opposition.

But the case against “the curse of monotony” went beyond political issues. Jacobs’
belief that “intricate minglings of different uses in cities are not a form of chaos…
[but] represent a complex and highly developed form of order” constituted an
assault on the basis of rationalism itself. If diversity could appear messy or ugly,
it was only as a result of our incapacity to understand complex order. Besides
this, Jacobs identified specific challenges arising from homogeneity: it was either
monotonous and dull, leading to disorientation and confusion for city dwellers,
or it forced the creation of false differentiation. “When uses are in actual fact
homogenous, we often find that deliberate distinctions and differences are
contrived among the buildings... but these give rise to esthetic difficulties too.
Because inherent differences -those that come from genuinely different uses-
are lacking among the buildings and their settings, the contrivances represent

105.  See: Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier. The Suburbanization of the United States (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1985): 231-238.

106.  See: Robert M. Fogelson, Bourgeois Nightmares. Suburbia 1870-1930 (New York: Yale
University Press, 2005).

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 the desire merely to appear different”.107 Reverting to a modernist ethics
of ‘honesty’, Jacobs could not conceive of appearance as a problem in itself,
believing that differences in formal expression were to arise from differences in
use -understood as a form of architectural “content”. Two further myths related
to diversity are to be broached in the remainder of chapter 12: the ideas that
it causes traffic congestion and that it invites “ruinous uses”. Regarding the
latter, some uses are indeed ruinous, but this is not a consequence of diversity
as such. “Undesirable” uses such as junkyards are best avoided by cultivating a
fertile economic environment, in which land prices prevent ruinous uses. Other
uses deemed “bad” (such as funeral parlors) must be defended in the context
of the city. There are a few uses that are truly ruinous (“street desolators”)
such as parking lots, gas stations, or trucking depots, but their inconvenience
is more a matter of their not keeping a proper scalar relationship with their
surroundings, than of the activities themselves. These maladjustments can be
controlled through regulations.

We may round up this review of Jane Jacobs’ theory of heterogeneity in the

American city by exploring her understanding of the effects that can be
achieved through acts of formal design with which architecture is concerned.
This is the main topic of chapter nineteen, where urban design is posited as a
discipline that must involve itself with how the city is visually perceived from
the street. A detailed set of prescriptions for urban differentiation is advanced
which reminisces the humanizing sensibility of the Picturesque and Townscape
movements. Qualifying statements that, in earlier chapters, had appeared as
expression of underlying deterministic beliefs, Jacobs points out that material
form can have no agency by itself (“Visual interruptions and vistas will not
in themselves, bring city vitality and intensity or their accompaniments of
safety, interest, casual public life and economic opportunity. Only the four
basic generators of diversity can do that”108), other than expressing a social and
economic content that are already given. It is here that despite the accuracy of
her observations on the dynamics of urban form, Death and Life loses some
of its poignancy. For, how is it possible to explain the set of strategies that
would later come to be known as urban acupuncture, other than on the basis
that appearance and design can also be a matter of content? The thesis that
exemplary formal objects can be a driver of urbanity and not just its expression
does not seem to have found a place in Jacobs’s understanding of the city.

Notwithstanding these limitations, Death and Life’s prescriptions for urban

design display a sophisticated comprehension of the variables at play, and
an up-to-date acquaintance with the ongoing disciplinary and scientific
developments at the time of its writing. The notion of the city as a work of art
is thoroughly rejected, yet the “tactics of emphasis and suggestion” are invoked
as means to enforce an indirect control on urban form. In a nutshell, Jacobs
states that the central question of urban design is whether to give priority to
the local, immediate, diverse context -the view of the “common man”- or to
focus on the long distance perspective -usually favored by the architect. If the
first communicates “life” and the second “endlessness”, the problem boils down
to curtailing the impression of endlessness (regularity, homogeneity) without

107.   Death and Life of Great American Cities, 224.

108.  Death and Life of Great American Cities, 382.

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obstructing the adequate functional order of the city. To negotiate these

tensions, Jacobs proposes three strategies, a) introducing visual interruptions
in streets (by either multiplying the number or altering the geometry of streets,
by working topographically, or by playing with the arrangement of built masses
relative to the street line), b) utilizing landmarks or eye-catching objects for
orientation, identity creation, dignification or symbolization of functionally
important locations, and c) deploying unifying devices to counteract excessive
fragmentation or diversity, such as trees, pavement patterns, awnings, but also
by zoning regulations capable of limiting parameters such as frontage extension.

In the years that followed immediately after the publication of Death and Life,
the architectural discipline would realize of the need to give a proper academic
formulation to the preoccupation with complexity that Jacobs had aptly
articulated. It was no longer enough to express a common-sense concern about
the inadequacies of modern functional design based on empirical observations.
The subject of 1960’s architectural theory would need to be constructed on
the basis of a new scientific sensibility. Furthermore, from 1966 onwards the
economic rationality underlying the mixed-used model advocated by Jacobs
would be faced with a counterattack by cultural and political analyses of urban
form that could not accept her epiphenomenal conception of design. The
remaining chapters of the dissertation are dedicated to examining how the
quest for heterogeneity continued to be pursued, during the 1960’s and 1970’s,
by strictly architectural means.

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PART II

Mapping the User

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 3. Subject and Process:
Emerging theoretical foundations of form in the postwar
architectural debate
 3.1 Disciplinary in-betweeness
In the first chapter, the evolution of the discourse of the user in architecture
was explained in relationship with a welfare state model of housing and ser-
vices provision, and its shift, during the 1960’s and 1970’s to an increasingly
liberalized, mass-consumerist economy. While the impact on architecture and
culture of this shift in productive organization is key in order to understand its
predicament during the last 50 years,1 an adequate explanation of the influ-
ence of these changes in the built environment must consider the distinctness
of the discipline’s internal dynamic, if it wishes to avoid the pitfalls of linear
determinism. Architecture, as is now widely accepted, cannot be reduced to
a service offered to a client, nor to an epiphenomenon of a process of eco-
nomic organization. Rather, it constitutes a cultural manifestation furnished
with its own values, objectives and forms of cognition. Set within a broader
ecology of knowledge that mediates between the material environment, and
the various forces that seek to mobilize its transformations, architecture’s
individuality as a technical and discursive field has been acknowledged by a
broad spectrum of writers –from Le Corbusier, to Aldo Rossi, Peter Eisen-
man and Patrik Schumacher. Even Michael Hays -a theoretician of Marxian
pedigree- affirmed this when he wrote that “interpretive inquiry lies in an
irreducibly architectural realm between those conditions that seem to generate
or enable the architect’s intention to make architecture and those forms in
which the intention is transcribed”.2 Likewise, claims about the marginality
of architectural knowledge in the realms of vernacular culture, especially in
so-called developing cities, frequently underestimate the influence achieved
by the discipline by means of processes of diffusion, through which concepts
and images reach almost every corner of the social field.
In approaching the relationship between the user and architecture in the
context of post-war culture, it is necessary, therefore, to avoid theories that
extrapolate social and anthropological accounts of buildings (understood as
direct expressions of cultural values, traditions, habits, and forms of produc-
tive organization) into the present. For these theories, exemplified by the
writings of culturalists like Amos Rapoport, or the Christopher Alexander of
A Pattern Language- overlook that such relation, at least since modernity,

1.   While some key accounts of the shift into a post-fordist mode of production and societal
organization provide a useful frame of reference to understand the challenges faced by architecture
during this period, no indication of how those challenges were to be confronted was predetermined
by context conditions. A simple proof of this the diversity of the responses that were produced by
the discipline, some nostalgic, some forwardlooking. For a canonical account of the emergence of
post-Fordism and its cultural consequences, see: David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An
Inquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1990).

2.   See Michael Hays, “Critical Architecture: Between Culture and Form”, Perspecta Vol. 21 (1984):
14-29. The view that sets architecture within the domain of critical cultural production includes in
its ranks a variety of philosophical and political inclinations. Their differences have been articulated
in terms of whether criticality should be understood as an oppositional dialectic that plays itself
out within the design process (as proposed by Michael Hays and Peter Eisenman), or if it should be
restricted to the context of interpretative work. The latter position has been elaborated by Sanford
Kwinter throughout his writings, and by Robert Somol and Sarah Whiting in their much debated,
“Notes around the Doppler Effect and other Moods of Modernism”, Perspecta Vol. 33 (2002): 72-77.

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is indelibly marked by the influence of disciplinary self-reflectivity. Hence,

its dynamic cannot be fully unraveled unless the forces at play within archi-
tecture’s realm are brought into focus. Socio-cultural explanations of “what
buildings do” place great emphasis on their agency vis-à-vis the single or col-
lective user, relegating the more indirect but widespread effects achieved by
certain buildings by virtue of their participation in a disciplinary exchange. 3
The architects that formed Team 10 –Alison and Peter Smithson among them-
had been exposed, since the late 1940’s, to various efforts by historians that
sought to redefine the terms of such disciplinarity by rescuing architecture
from the claws of a naïve functionalist discourse. Attempts to foreground
issues of symbolism and proportion as constitutive of the discipline, such as
Rudolf Wittkower’s Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism (1949),
were instrumental in establishing an architectural epistemology that set its
turning point in fifteenth century humanism, and described henceforth an
uninterrupted development arc. According to this historiography, and to
later contributions by Manfredo Tafuri, architecture’s coming of age as a
separate discipline –defining its own boundaries in practical or theoretical
form- could be traced back to Filippo Brunelleschi’s reorganization of me-
dieval construction practices, to the categorical distinction made by Leon
Battista Alberti, in De Re Aedificatoria, between design and construction,
or to Andrea Palladio’s mobilization of private patronage in order to con-
struct –for the first time- an individual architectural persona.4 What these
narratives signaled is that, prior to the Renaissance, there was no such
thing as an architectural discipline in the sense of an institution claiming
hegemonic competency over the determination of building forms. Thus, a
new epistemology of architecture was established that placed the discipline
back into the stream of history.5 But architecture’s historicity had to rely on
a theoretical framework that specified the terms under which its emergence
and development could take place.

After the end of WWII, the closure of the heroic period of modern archi-
tecture set the stage for such theorizations. In view of the exhaustion of the
radical interwar cycle, historians and critics felt compelled to cast a new look
at the events of the first half-century. The need was felt to reassess modern
architecture’s achievements, to define its principles in stable and positive
form, and to dispel its mystified relationship with the past. In this process,
the modern movement’s declared break with history was recast by Wittkower

3.    See Thomas F. Gieryn, “What Buildings Do”, Theory and Society 31 (2002): 35-74.

4.    As John Habraken points out, Palladianism was, in the eighteenth century, the first style to
be identified with the name of an architect, see: Palladio´s Children, edited by Jonathan Teicher
(London and New York: Taylor and Francis, 2005).

5.   Symptomatic of this move is not only Colin Rowe’s claim of a continuity between Le Corbusier
and Palladio, but also Wittkower’s own appraisal of Le Corbusier’s Modulor as “a dual system of
of irrational magnitudes still dependent on the conceptions which Pythagorean-Platonic thought
opened up for Western man.”. See: Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism (Chichester:
John Wiley and Sons, 1998): 155. First published in London in 1949 as volume 19 of the Studies of
the Warburg Institute.

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 as part of a larger narrative that pivoted on the Renaissance and reached
all the way back to classical antiquity. But consensus on the existence of
this relation would not extend into a definition of its nature. Some would
continue to see architecture in terms of its social program, while others sug-
gested the prevalence of formal preoccupations –in their relationship with
broader cultural themes- as the operative kernel of the discipline. This was
expressed clearly in the polarity between the ideas of Wittkower and John
Summerson,6 and in its further elaboration and radicalization as heteronomous
theories of architecture as service, or, conversely, in its conceptualization as
an autonomous formal discourse.

In the paragraphs that follow, we will investigate the attempts made by two
architects of a slightly younger generation (born around the mid 1930’s) to
take some of the challenges posed by Team 10 to a higher level of abstraction
and methodological rigor. In doing this, said architects laid out the base for
two competing conceptions of architectural form and representation, which
only recently have been subjected to an effort of synthesis. 7 With such con-
ceptions at hand, the problem of the relationship between architecture and
the collective subject that had been identified by Team 10 and the Smithsons
will become amenable to a rigorous analysis, the terms of which are in line
with Michael Hays’ notion of architecture as a mediation “between culture
and form”.

Apart from emphasizing both personal and intellectual relationships that

have been somewhat neglected by the mainstream accounts of Team 10 and
the architecture of social housing, the goal of this chapter is to construct an
explanatory account of architecture as a process of exchange and filtering of
information between different domains of cultural and material production.
While this exchange has been frequently explained in terms of the autonomy/
heteronomy dialectic, the effort here is to avoid this categorical opposition,
retaining these terms merely in order to establish the ideal extremes of a
range of possibilities with regards to a scale of predictability (or linearity) of
a decision-making process. In this context, a purely heteronomous process
might be equated with the idea of a perfectly functioning mechanism, in
which its outputs, either as information or as work, are entirely predictable
by virtue of a known cause-effect relationship; by contrast, a purely autono-
mous process could be imagined as a perfectly unpredictable machine, in
the sense that its output has no perceivable pattern of relationship with its

6.   John Summerson, “The Case for a Theory of Modern Architecture”, RIBA Journal (6/1957):
307-301. Reprinted in Architecture Culture 1943-1968. A Documentary Anthology. Edited by Joan
Ockman, with the collaboration of Edward Eigen (New York: Rizzoli, 1993). Wittkower stressed the
influence of neoplatonism on Renaissance religious architecture in order to explain the adoption of
the centralized church plan –an inclination that countered the practical requirements of the liturgy
at that time. See: Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism, cit.

7.   I have developed this idea in a previously published essay. See: “Contigencia y Universalidad. La
Base Conecptual de la Arquitectura Contemporánea”, Summa+ no. 116 (9/2011).

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inputs. This polarity will prove useful in defining a concept that is central
to the issues being analyzed. In effect, as an entity or form of organization
develops internal complexity, its identity (self-definition) with respect to
its environment becomes more evident. At some point in this evolution, it
becomes possible to speak of the emergence of a “self” -not in ideal, Cartesian
or Kantian terms, but in the embodied sense that was referred to by Henri
Bergson (and later by cybernetics and complexity science) to refer to that
which is capable of being “alive”.8 However, if self-identity is the result of a
process of growing internal complexity and organization, then to what extent
is it possible to promote “identification” as a purposive architectural action?
The framework delineated below is an attempt to place the debates concern-
ing the category of the user, and its various architectural applications, in
conversation with some of the academic debates of their time, but also with
recent theoretical works aimed at overcoming the burdens of structuralist
thinking. These works are characterized by their rejection of dualist opposi-
tions, which are replaced by a logic of whole systems that are different, yet
not contradictory. Typical of the 1960’s structuralist legacy is its attachment
to dichotomies such as autonomy/heteronomy, subject/structure, natural/
artificial; in architecture it has taken the form of part vs. whole, digital vs.
the analogic, or virtual vs. real. In order to challenge the narrative carefully
prepared for us by the Smithsons on Team 10 and its thinking –seemingly
unconcerned with a broad range of such events in science and philosophy-
it is necessary to follow a series of less-trodden yet visible connections to
parallel developments. Thus, for instance, preoccupations stemming from
mathematics, linguistics, evolutionary, and complexity theory (which were
brought to bear on architecture during the early 1960’s, only to be resuscitated
much more recently9), or from cybernetics and systems theory (relevant in
many of the investigations carried out at Cambridge University and at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology), 10 provide the conceptual tools to

8.   The idea of life in the context of cybernetics and systems theory has been defined as a capacity of
certain organizations to produce and reproduce the conditions of their own individual being. Thus
self and life are closely related concepts, hinging upon the idea of emergence. In trying to move away
from Kantian autonomy, Chilean biologists Francisco Varela and Humberto Maturana created the
term auto-poiesis. The auto-poietic self is not autonomous from its context, but is not determined
by it either. The condition for the subsistence of the self (including the idea of an institutional self
like architecture), within the context of cybernetic explanation, is that it should preserve a safety
distance from the ideal poles of heteronomy and autonomy, in order not dissolve itself by alienation,
or dissociative schizophrenia. See: Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, De Máquinas y
Seres Vivos. La Auto-organización de lo Vivo (Santiago: Editorial Universitaria, 1994 [1973]). Fifth
edition, 1998.

9.   See for example: Sanford Kwinter, Architectures of Time. Toward a Theory of the Event in
Modernist Culture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001).

10.      Picked up from a different perspective by the recent contributions of Patrick Schumacher. See:
The Autopoiesis of Architecture. A New Framework for Architecture (Chichester: John Wiley and
sons, 2011). The basic hypothesis for this expansive work had been exposed by Schumacher already
in the homonymous essay from 2002. See: Patrick Schumacher and Zaha Hadid (Eds.), Latent
Utopias. Experiments within Contemporary Architecture (New York and Wien: Springer Verlag,
2002).

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 broach issues of process and translation that had been suggested, yet never
quite developed by any of the members of Team 10.

It is in such context that the debate began in the early 1960’s at Cambridge
University, between a purpose-driven “architectural science” –represented
here by the investigations of the likes of Lionel March and Christopher Alex-
ander, both transfers from mathematics to architecture- and a concept-driven
“architectural expression” –forwarded in the doctoral dissertation of Peter
Eisenman-, is of relevance.11 A re-reading of this debate makes it possible to
formulate a conceptual definition of architecture’s incumbencies that shall serve
to better explicate the design of the artifacts of post-war collective housing.

3.2. Exteriority: Towards a Radical Heteronomy

Influenced by the ideas of cyberneticists William Ross Ashby, Norbert Wiener,
and John von Neumann, by the architectural theories of John Summerson, and
by the tradition of philosophical rationalism, Christopher Alexander made,
in the early 1960’s, an important, if polemical, contribution to architecture
theory: he purified functionalism and took it to its extreme conclusion. In
his doctoral dissertation of 1962, published two years later as Notes on the
Synthesis of Form,12 he theorized the process of architecture´s historical
institution up until its crisis, in the twentieth century, suggesting that this
crisis was a result of the discipline’s inability to deal with the challenges posed
to it by modernity.13 Alexander argued that although the project of modern

11.  A detailed account of the activities of the Department of Architecture at Cambridge University
under Leslie Martin’s tenure can be found in Sean Keller’s, “Fenland Tech: Architectural Science in
Postwar Cambridge”, Grey Room no. 23 (2006): 40-65.

12.  Notes on the Synthesis of Form (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964).

13.   Alexander avoids the use of the word “modernity” in his book. His choice of the term “self-
conscious culture” is presumably an attempt to expand the scope of his argument, by not fixing
it exclusively to a western historiography. Since that is not our aim, we shall employ the terms

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functionalism had been properly formulated by MarcAntoine Laguier and

Carlo Lodoli already in the XVIIIth century, it had never been fully realized.
His theory was advanced as a response to a perceived crisis, and as an at-
tempt to carry the tradition of architecture-as-service to its fruition. In his
response to this crisis, Alexander crossfertilized Cartesian rationalism with
cybernetics, systems theory, structuralism, and Kantian concepts, elaborating
a neo-humanist ontology of architecture that is founded on allegedly scientific
notions such as “objective structure of requirements”, and ethical ideas, like
“goodness of fit”. In doing so, Alexander not only furnished one the earliest
and most referenced contributions to the discourse of user needs, but pro-
vided an overarching historical and philosophical account of architecture.
Alexander frames the emergence of architecture as a distinct form of knowl-
edge in the passage from an “unselfconscious process” -rooted in traditional,
pre-modern cultures- to a “self-conscious” one, proper to the culture of mo-
dernity. In Alexander´s text, the transition from a pre-modern to a modern
culture expresses itself most clearly in the shift from a mode of form-making
based on implicit rules, to one where the rules or principles have to be made
explicit. The appearance of the architectural treatise in the 15th century,
and the ensuing institutionalization of the discipline would be the signposts
of this change. Thus, within an explicitly complexity/systemstheoretical
worldview, Alexander defines architecture as a historical “special case” of
a generic practice of form-making, understood as the evolutionary reduc-
tion of a solution space.14 In order to develop his critique of modern design,
Alexander counterpoises the piecemeal evolutionary process characteristic
of unselfconscious cultures, to conceptually driven methods of design. The
latter, he argues, have been devised by modern culture as a way to deal with
the unassailable complexity of design problems. But a conceptual approach
to design is inevitably at fault -so his critique unfolds- because concepts are
unable to “map” the objective underlying structure of a problem, 15 which is
always specific to a given context, and thus impossible to typify. 16 Alexander

modernity and “self-conscious culture” interchangeably.

14.  The entire book is peppered with references to cybernetics, complexity and systems theory.
Already in the first page, Alexander declares: “Today functional problems are becoming less simple
all the time...When a designer does not understand a problem clearly enough to find the order it
really calls for, he falls back on some arbitrarily chosen formal order. The problem, because of its
complexity, remains unsolved” (emphasis added).Op. Cit:, p. 1.

15.   “the self-conscious design procedure provides no structural correspondence between the problem
and the means devised for solving it.” Op. cit. p. 69.

16.  Alexander would abandon some of his views on this issue in his later works. In A Pattern
Language, he declares that, on the contrary, not every design problem must be “computed” –i.e.:
resolved- from scratch, but that there are recurrent, timeless, and universal situations, the solution
to which can be typified and be made available for their appropriation by the users. Despite this
development, he remains suspicious of the capacities of architecture, arguing that “the most
wonderful places of the world were not made by architects but by the people”. Overall, (structuralist)
beliefs such as “true invariants”, or “objective structure of problems”, remain undisputed throughout
his oeuvre. See: A Pattern Language. Towns, Buildings, Construction (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1977). Similar preoccupations are expressed by Peter Smithson when, in his 1969 appraisal
of the historical city of Bath, he describes some of its features as the result of the application of a

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 concludes that the problem of self-conscious design is a misfit between the
conditions posed by culture and the methods and attitudes envisaged to deal
with them. He defines those conditions as a general growth in complexity
of the problems to be solved, a decrease in the stability of the context (“no
adjustment is ever finished”), and a loss of immediacy between the needs
and the resources (material, human, and cognitive) available to fulfill them
(“failures, when they occur, have to be several times reported and described
before the specialist will recognize them and make some permanent adjust-
ment”). The method is “conceptual”, and the attitudes are individualistic,
academic, experimental, and autonomous.17

3.3 Disembodied Subject

Despite its limitations, the theory of architecture presented by Alexander in
Notes was potent in that it recognized and incorporated the growing cultural
impact of the new studies on control and communication that had been fos-
tered by recent technological development. While some of its themes such
as the idea of an objective “structure of requirements”, or the emphasis on
a “problemsolving” approach- never managed to gain critical momentum
within the architectural profession, others such as the idea of systems of
computation as form generators- were pertinent in order to address the is-
sues of complexity and heterogeneity that lay at the core of housing design.
Seen from the perspective of his contemporaries, the ingenuity in Alexander´s
early theory lay not just in his critique of the inherited work of the “masters”,
but, most importantly, in its disregard for a dimension of materiality and
embodiment in architecture. His model of formal computation (or synthesis)
is, indeed, carried out in a vacuum, that is, in a space that has no intrinsic
properties or tendencies, being itself an abstract medium. Even as he quotes
D´Arcy Thompson´s studies of animal morphogenesis to show that a good
formal “solution” is the result of the computation of a diagram of forces,
Alexander overlooks the fact that Thompson´s morphogenesis is materi-
ally computed, that it can only “resolve itself”, formally, within a material
medium. A material medium is different from an abstract medium in that
it presents tendencies, resistances and predetermined pathways for interac-
tion; it has inherent qualities. The difference between Alexander´s structure
of requirements and Thompson´s material medium is, therefore, a defining
one. For while in Thompson´s ontology of form the material medium func-
tions as an a priori field that is charged with tendencies and restrictions,
in Alexander, computation takes places in a discrete logical space that is
structured by value-laden elements and relationships. In effect, Alexander´s
theory hinges critically on concepts such as “good fit”, “misfit”, “problem”,
and “solution”, as well as high level causal relationships that cannot be for-

shared form-language. The appeal to the collective and the vernacular as a source of legitimacy in
both cases is significant, although Peter Smithson’s interest is clearly on the material, rather than the
behavioral level. See: Peter Smithson, “Bath: Walks within the walls. A study of Bath as a built form
taken over by other uses”, AD Architectural Design Vol. 39 No. 6/7 (10/1969): 554-564.

17.   Op. cit.: 55-65.

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mulated outside of an ideological framework. 18 In that sense, if Alexander´s

is a subject-centered theory of architectural form, it is one which takes place
in a purely “mental space” of objective needs. It is a theory of form based on
a disembodied subject who has no desire for communication –only a “reality
of communication”- or affect, and it is due to its reliance on this abstract,
Cartesian brain that the limitations of the theory can be best explained.

3.4 Developments in Computational Synthesis

Nevertheless, the computational model proposed by Alexander still contained
useful conceptual DNA for a theory of the architectural design process. Even
if, in its scientization of architecture, Alexander’s disembodied computation
was unable to excite the imagination of its forbearers, Notes on the Synthesis
of Form offered concepts that remained instrumental. One of them was the
notion of synthesis itself, a second one the idea of context understood as in-
formation, and a third, the idea of the diagram. In conjunction, these concepts
sought to create a bridge between the functions of explanation (discourse) and
operation (projection) in a collaborative, dynamic, and reversible fashion.19

Christoper Alexander. Diagrammatic

representation of a design problem
based on graph theory. Structure of
interactions among design constraints
(above); richly vs. weakly interrelated
groups of constraints (center), and
“objective” vs. “conceptual” associations
of design constraints (below).
Source: Notes on the Synthesis of Form.

18.   The design of a kettle is presented by Alexander early in the book to illustrate the complexity
of conflicting constraints interacting even on a simple of form-making challenge. But the attempt
to remove all formal a prioris by operating in a purely logical space proves absurd, as these are
smuggled back in the form of ethical a prioris regarding all the functions the kettle must perform.

19.   This should not be understood in terms of the deconstructivist project of architecture as a form or
writing. Devised during the late 80´s, mainly in North American academia, this initiative conflated
the projective and the discursive as single indivisible operation. While in many respects it served to
overcome the rigidities of an earlier structuralist philosophy, it also lead to a self-absorbed period
that placed great emphasis on architecture´s signification. The first issue of the New York journal
ANY, published in 1990, was dedicated to this subject.

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 The promise of Alexander’s computational synthesis lay in that it referred to
a mode of integration that blurred, or superseded the identity of its compo-
nent parts; it generated a whole that subsumed any discrete elements. But,
importantly, this integration was different from the type of dialectical syn-
thesis that eliminated contradiction via reasoning or reductio ad absurdum.
The idea of synthesis proposed by Alexander was computational; it did not
proceed by composing forms, but forces. The way in which requirements, or
needs, were translated into measurable forces and the means by which forces
were to be synthesized was considered by Alexander as a “purely technical”
question, and he thus left it untreated.20 But it is here that the interest of
synthesis actually lay, for it demanded that those needs be translated into
material rather than logical determinations. It forced a translation of rhetori-
cal tropes into a consistent language of material and action, thereby limiting
representational strategies.

Even if this was not announced by Alexander, the mode of integration afforded
by computational synthesis resonated with a number of contemporaneous
developments in art. The departure from a representational order based on
the dialectic of juxtaposition of discrete shapes, and the passage to a logic of
continuity, indexicality, and formal negotiation is one of the signposts of this
change. This passage had been prepared in modern painting and architecture
by the aesthetic proposals of Futurism 21 and Surrealism, but it was only with
the advent of post-war abstract expressionism, in the United States, that it
found a way to move from a representation of material computation to a
fully indexical mode of registration. Jackson Pollock´s horizontal canvases,
functioning as a means to capture his movements in a painting, are perhaps
the most canonic example of this shift. In architecture the move from orga-
nizational strategies based on visual composition, to a generative, indexical
logic were initiated both by the formalist exercises of Peter Eisenman and
the computational synthesis of Alexander. These exercises lost momentum
during the postmodernist phase of the 70´s and 80´s, but found new traction
in the early 1990´s, when the convergence of a neo-materialist philosophy
with the expansion of digital computation allowed the idea of the indexical
to be pursued in a digitally simulated material environment. 22

20.  While Alexander’s method is clearly non-dialectical, the greatest effort is not put in the
computation of interacting forces, but in defining the variables and interdependences that define
the problem in structural terms. Alexander is convinced that the success of a design process relies
fundamentally in creating a rigorous map of “needs”, or requirements. Despite the absurdity of the
idea, the method focuses primarily on the creation of this map, leaving almost untreated the question
of how this structure of constraints is to be translated into an actual field of forces, and how this field
of forces is to be computed. See Alexander, Op. cit., 21

21.  This has been analyzed in detail by Sanford Kwinter, Op. Cit., see chapter 3: “Physical Theory and
Modernity: Einstein, Boccioni, Sant’ Elia” pp. 54-100.

22.  Eisenman himself theorized this shift –which he understood as the emergence of an electronic
paradigm- in two closely related articles, written at about the same time as preparing the
competition entry for Rebstockpark in Frankfurt. See Peter Eisenman, “Unfolding Events: Frankfurt
Rebstockpark and the Possibility of a New Urbanism” in Sanford Kwinter and Jonathan Crary (eds.)

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Jackson Pollock at work on Autumn

Rhythm (1950). Photograph by Hans
Namuth. Source: Jeremy Lewison,
Interpreting Pollock (Tate Gallery
Publishing, 1999).

This evolution in the mode of synthesis from a composition of fragments to

a computational integration of forces (and movement as its expression), was
subtended by the fundamental change in the conception of reality brought
about by cybernetics. Since cybernetics was concerned with the problems of
“control and communication in the animal and the machine”, it had to de-
velop a new dynamic of connectivity between independent systems; for this,
it relied in the concept of information as its primary matter and language.23
In a lecture titled “Form, Substance and Difference”, given in January 1970,
Gregory Bateson formulated an explanation of the meaning of this concept in
the context of a general theory of communication.24 Information, he argued,
is, in the first place, that which “travels” from an object to its representation.
Bateson resorted to Alfred Korzybski´s dictum “the map is not the terri-
tory”, in order to underscore the fact that our relationship with the world is
continuously mediated by its representations. Furthermore, as we begin to
dig into the nature of that which is being represented, continued Bateson,
we find it to be itself a recursive network of representations. In that sense,
the difference between a map and a territory is circumstantial rather than
transcendental.25 And yet, what is quite the nature of the information that

Zone 6. Incorporations (New York: Zone, 1992): 423-426. Reprinted in Written into the Void.
Selected Writings 1990-2004 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007); “Visions’
Unfolding: Architecture in the Age of Electronic Media”, Domus No. 734 (1/1992).

23.  “After all, the subject matter of cybernetics is not events and objects, but the information ‘carried’
by events and objects”. Gregory Bateson, “Cybernetic Explanation”, in Steps to an Ecology of Mind
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000 [1972]): 407.

24.  Gregory Bateson, Op. cit.: 454-471.

25.  It is interesting to note that, by posing that the differentiation between the thing and its
representation is dependent on circumstances, Bateson’s proposition relativizes the objectivity of the
“thing in itself”, but prevents, at the same time, an absolute independence of representation. This

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 “travels” from the territory to the map? According to Bateson, the territory,
the Kantian ding an sich, can be described in terms of differences –for ex-
ample, differences in height, differences in temperature, differences in color,
etc. But, problematically, these differences are infinite in number. The only
differences that “get onto the map” –in the case of a mental representation,
the differences that can be captured by the mind- are those that are relevant
from the point of view of the reasons that justify the existence of the map
–Bateson calls this “a difference that makes a difference”. 26

Bateson’s cybernetic explanation might serve as a corrective to Christopher

Alexander’s somewhat naïve usage of the terms information and synthesis; for
he shows that 1) the distinction between map and territory is circumstantial,
2) that the map –the representation- is never neutral or objective in
relationship with the territory, and 3) that information cannot be separated
from notions of relevance or practicality, which are essentially subjective.
Furthermore, Bateson advances the hypothesis that the map emerges at the
encounter between actual excitations or differences existing in the thing
itself and differences existing at the level of the neural pathways of a system,
through which those excitations are processed. In this, he demonstrates that
no such thing as a disembodied cognitive process is possible: i.e. that the
emergence of forms (of cognition) necessitates a complex material medium
in order to unfold. His view of mind and cognition is informational and
materialist, yet this does not reduce its scope or its capacity to deal with
complex phenomena such as emotion and artistic expression. In fact, it can be
seen that it is motivated by them.

3.5 Interiority: Conceptual

So far, we have examined the post-war ramifications of a rationalist theoretical
line, represented by Christopher Alexander´s radicalization of architectural
functionalism, and its semiological and philosophical implications. In this,
we have discovered that the cybernetics approach that he had espoused
had been, in fact, preoccupied with the production of a general theory of
communication based on the idea of isolatable systems such as a mind, or, in
fact, any collective assemblage displaying a coherent behavior, for example,
a discipline- that relate to their exterior via a series of stimulus-response (as
opposed to cause-effect) mechanisms. If architecture could be viewed as one
such system, then an operative model to account for its internal circuitry was
the piece that was missing in order to complete the puzzle. In ascertaining
such configuration of the discipline’s interiority, the contributions of Rudolph
Wittkower, Colin Rowe and the latter’s disciple, Peter Eisenman, stand out as
figures of inevitable reference. Moreover, their relationship with the previously
analyzed work by Alexander is not casual, as Eisenman has recognized that his
doctoral dissertation, written at Cambridge University between 1960 and 1963
was a direct response to the ideas that Christopher Alexander had developed

stands in opposition to the later work of postmodern philosophers, such a Baudrillard, who would
grant autonomy and precedence to representation and deny the possibility of the real. See: Jean
Baudrillard, “The Precession of Simulacra”, in Simulacra and Simulation, Translated by Sheila Faria
Glaser (University pof Michigan Press: 1991).

26.  Op. cit.: 459.

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earlier at the same institution and later at Harvard University.27

Eisenman arrived in Cambridge in the summer of 1960, and started working

on his dissertation soon after, under the direction of Colin St. John Wilson,
but also -perhaps most critically- under the influence of Colin Rowe. In a
post-script to the facsimile publication of his dissertation in 2006 Eisenman
recounts the lasting influence of his acquaintanceship with Rowe. “After three
months travelling in Europe that first summer with Colin Rowe”, says Eisen-

man, “I knew what I wanted to write: an analytic work that related what I had
Peter Eisenman. Graphic analysis of
learned to see, from Palladio to Terragni, from Raphael to Guido Reni into Le Corbusier’s Swiss Pavillion. The
deformations in the plan are read as
some theoretical construct that would bear on modern architecture, but from
the figurative inscription of forces of
the point of view of a certain autonomy of form”. 28 Most significant appears movement on the site.
Source: The Formal Basis of Modern
to have been their joint visit to the city of Como in 1961, where Eisenman Architecture (1963).
first discovered the work of Giuseppe Terragni. In his dissertation, as well
as in several other essays along his career, Eisenman emphasized his view
that the work of Terragni embodied a greater level of abstraction than that
of any other modernist architect. In focusing on an Italian architect that had

27.  See: Robert Somol, “The Diagrammatic Basis of Contemporary Architecture”, in Peter Eisenman,
Diagram Diaries (Universe Architecture Series, 1999).

28. Peter Eisenman, The Formal Basis of Modern Architecture (Baden: Lars Muller Publishers,
2006): 379.

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 been associated with Fascism, Eisenman acknowledged the need to develop
a different understanding of the message of the modern movement. If it had
reached a point of exhaustion, he argued, the reason was not its inability to
articulate a method to deal efficiently with the contemporary problems at
hand –as diagnosed by Alexander-, for Eisenman was a declared admirer of
the legacy of the “masters”. On the contrary, the problem lay in the fact that
too much attention had been paid, particularly by critics and historians, to
the historical and technological conditions that had surrounded the emer-
gence of modern architecture. 29 Eisenman’s response consisted in forging
a theory that moved away from the idea of architecture as a problemsolving
activity, in order to inscribe it in a field of expressive communication. Mod-
ern architecture was no longer described by recourse to external requests,
but explained as a formal language, based on sets of rules. Correct use of
these rules had the principal aim of clarifying a message by means of which
an author’s conceptual intentions were to be conveyed.

Eisenman’s theoretical construction resulted from a conflation of the formalist

analysis methods devised in the 1940’s by Wittkower and Rowe,30 with emerg-
ing structuralist and systemic conceptions of language, most notably those
articulated by Noam Chomsky in Syntactic Structures (1957).31 His thesis sets
out by establishing a distinction between “relative aims” and “absolute aims”,
and stating the primacy of the latter.32 Identifiable with those architectonic
decisions that originate in “environmental conditions”, relative aims lay at
the base of functionalism. Eisenman argued that functionalism was able to
produce specific forms by deriving them from a series of context conditions
(function is, both for Alexander and Eisenman, a condition of context), but
it was incapable of relating these to the more abstract realm of generic form.
Because the latter does not rely on personal or temporal conditions to be
identified, it belonged to the domain of the absolute. Generic form, accord-
ing to Eisenman, must be thought in a platonic sense, as an entity that has
its own inherent rules.

In Eisenman’s model relative aims must be seen as subsidiary to the existence

of a formal language that encompasses syntactic and grammatical rules of
a deep underlying order. This order, which is conceptual –i.e. it can not be
accessed directly through the senses-, expresses itself in specific form by

29.  This invective is specifically directed against the explanations provided by John Summerson and
Reyner Banham. Op. Cit., 13-14.

30.  See, “The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa. Palladio and Le Corbusier Compared”, published
originally in Architectural Review (3/1947).

31.  Specific reference to Noam Chomsky appears only in Eisenman´s writings of the early 1970’s.
See: “From Object to Relationship II: Giuseppe Terragni. Casa Giuliani-Frigerio”, Perspecta 13-14
(1971): 36-65.

32.  “This need for individual expression is a legitimate one, but if it is to be to be satisfied without
prejudice to the comprehensibility of the environment as a whole, a general system of priorities must
be proposed; and it will be argued here that such system must necessarily give preference to absolute
over temporal ends.” Op. Cit., 29.

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means of mechanisms of differentiation of the generic form. Here, an ex-

plicit parallel is drawn to Chomsky’s notion of deep and surface structure.
Eisenman claims that “it is possible to discern two aspects, a surface syntax
and a deep level syntax”; the former is defined, following Chomsky, as “that
aspect of syntactic description which determines the phonetic form –the
physical signal”, whereas “the deep structure of a syntactic description […]
determines its semantic interpretation […], deep structures are concerned
with providing an abstract or conceptual framework for the formal regulari-
ties common to all languages”. 33

An example of the application of Chomsky’s theories of transformational

grammar in the production of formal heterogeneity can be seen in Eisenman’s
house projects during the late 1960s, specifically in House I and House II. 34
Formal differentiation in Eisenman’s generative model operates by sequen-
tially and linearly loading determinations on a generic formal matrix. These
determinations however, are not related to an objective physical condition or
understanding of reality, but are a means to register a conceptual intention Peter Eisenman. Generative diagrams for
House II (1969).
of the author with respect to such physical reality. Thus, a project’s internal
Source: Five Architects (1972).
differentiation does not need to follow from a perceived complexity of the
field in which the project is inserted. If the work is to display an elevated
formal heterogeneity, this will be seen to derive from a will to complexity
inherent in the author’s perception of a given reality, and its sophisticated
articulation as a system. Taken together, these determinations form “systems”,
whose function is not, according to Eisenman, to limit the design process,
but to impose a discipline on it; systems are “an order in the vocabulary of
form, they provide a framework in which the syntax and grammar of this
vocabulary unfold”.35

3.6 Interiority: Historical

Following the general framework outlined in his dissertation, the early pro-
duction of Eisenman reveals an attempt to imbricate theoretical propositions
with a number of practical exercises in which those axioms are tested. Such
experiences are characterized by an ambiguous and at times contradictory
relationship with history. On one hand it can be seen that the adherence to
Chomsky’s understanding of language implies an acceptance of the existence
of deep, timeless structures, which architecture can potentially disclose and
make explicit. But, paradoxically, this “structural” level of form is accessed
through an interpretation of specifically historical forms, those of modern-
ism. Furthermore, it is through the establishment of a critical relationship

33.  The techniques and categories of syntactical analysis are present throughout Eisenman’s
dissertation, yet a more thorough and systematic development is only present in “From Object to
Relationship II: Giuseppe Terragni. Casa Giuliani-Frigerio”, cit. 39-40.

34.  Peter Eisenman, “Cardboard Architecture. House I and House II” in Eisenman Inside Out.
Selected Writings 1963-1988 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004). Drafted
originally in 1969 and 1970, and published in Five Architects: Eisenman, Graves, Gwathmey,
Hejduk, Meier, edited by Arthur Drexler (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972): 15-24.

35.  Peter Eisenman, op. Cit.

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 to the masters and the canonization of the work of Terragni, that the idea
that architecture is structured as a language is brought to the fore. This
contradiction is resolved in Eisenman’s later work by incorporating a more
nuanced definition of architecture’s interiority. As he starts to take build-
ing commissions, his conception of architecture begins to shift from that
of an abstract formal grammar, to a practice that is implicated in a greater
number of registers. Thus, in the 1980’s, site, philosophy, and science are
given their rightful place within a theory of architecture’s interiority, and
finally architecture’s historicity comes full circle with the assumption of the
discipline’s own memory as the quarry for its advancement. This later stage
might express the possibility of a final truce with postmodernism, yet at the
same time its overcoming. For, while a direct relationship with historical

4. Peter Eisenman. Comparison between

Giuseppe Terragni’s Casa del Fascio and
House II.
Source:

materials is finally accepted as productive, the configuration, meaning and

purpose of that material is opened for interpretation in ways broader and
more novel than ever before. If postmodernism had taken history to be a
reservoir of materials from which to borrow –or pillage- establishing a sort
of cynical continuity with the past, Eiseman’s latest re-articulation of archi-
tecture’s internal circuitry now rested on the idea of rupture. 36 It is in the
historical discontinuity of the discipline where the key to its unfolding is to
be found. The historical materials give form to a disciplinary memory –most
of which is unconscious-, and a critical practice is where that unconscious is
expressed by means of its own transformation. Peter Eisenman’s shift from
language to an embrace of history evidences a move from a stable structuralist
framework of architecture, to an interiority based on a plastic interpretation
of the discipline’s memory. It is no longer by reference to generic timeless
structures that singularity and difference may be generated –as Colin Rowe
had postulated-, but by a critical assumption of architecture’s own history,
and its transformation through cuts and dislocations.

36.  Peter Eisenman, Ten Canonical Buildings. 1950-2010 (New York: Rizzoli, 2008).

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3.7 Solving the Dilemma

It was stated at the beginning of this chapter that an understanding of
architecture that supersedes the autonomy-determinism polarity requires
a model of explanation that can account for the influences of the environ-
ment, as well as for the processes that are channeled and energized from
within the system itself. To remain on one side of this duality would only
provide us with an incomplete and outdated explanation. It would force us
to accept the idea of a subject alienated by the categorical imperative to “do
what it must”, or it would lead us to assume the absolute separation of the
subject from the whole of reality. This confrontation between theoretical
constructions of autonomy and heteronomy illustrates a dilemma in which
architecture was increasingly involved since the decade of 1960. Practice
forced architects to resolve this dilemma in one way or another –and the
modes of user participation in architecture had precisely this goal-, but the
theoretical breach remained open. The heteronomy camp, paradoxically,
formed an increasingly “autonomous” institutional discipline, variously
named “community architecture”, “participatory architecture”, etc. (promoted
by notable leaders of varied ideological extraction, from academics such as
Henry Sanoff and John Habraken, to advocacy practitioners such as John
Turner, to New Urbanism practitioners like Andres Duany, and even Prince
Charles of Wales), which, as mentioned in the first chapter, developed its own
forms of expertise, communication, and means of institutional integration. It
has functioned since then with diverse degrees of success, particularly in the
harsh historical conditions that erupted after the demise of the welfare state
in the early 1980’s. Likewise, the modern liberal practice of architecture has
not always been “free” to claim an autonomous status. As Manfredo Tafuri
noted in 1969, architecture’s “withdrawal from [social] service” became indeed
a palpable condition of the post1970’s world, forcing much of the discipline
to “retreat” into “pure architecture”, or “form without utopia”.

Today, to remain fixated in the interpretative dilemmas that were posed by

structuralism is surely anachronistic and will lead us almost automatically to
regressive positions. In order to formulate a novel-yet-rigorous interpretation
of architectural form in relationship with the idea of the user, it is necessary to
pick up and synthesize the different the pieces of the existing cultural puzzle.
Christopher Alexander –an invited participant, at age 26, in the 1962 meeting
of Team 10 at Royaumont, France- offered in his early proposals a frame-
work for a non-figurative idea of composition of external forces acting on
architecture. 37 His architecture is a diagram that computes those forces,

37.  At Royaumont, Alexander presented the project for and Indian village that he later included
in the Appendix of Notes. His work was rather coldly received, as related by Alison Smithson: “…
Team 10 thought that Alexander should go on to build; and by doing so, accept responsibility for his
analysis. Team 10 are all builders by nature, and tend to be nervous –if not suspicious- of those who
proceed from one research to another”. See: Alison Smithson, “Team 10 at Royaumont, 1962”, AD
Architectural Design (11/1975): 677.

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 but it is a disembodied diagram that has only objective functional needs but
no internally energized processes, embedded circuitry or materiality. Peter
Eisenman’s formalism, on the other hand, consolidated an idea of architecture
that was energized from within. It was a rational, desiring, selfconscious,
communicative subject, but one that acknowledged no relationship of de-
pendence or exchange with its environment. For Eisenman, architecture
was only internally structured. Such detachment drew much on the Kantian
notion of a transcendental subject, endowed with an absolute sovereignty.
As in Rousseau’s man in a “state of nature”, this subject exists prior to any
concept of the body politic, and is free of all determination by it. It is a subject
that engages the world in its own terms, out of its own will. If such traces of
a transcendental subject in Eisenman’s formalism are left aside, and if his
model of precedence, or anteriority, rather than language, is taken to inform
the internal configuration of architecture, then it is possible to see how his
theoretical contribution may enter into a productive complementation with
that of Alexander. The latter’s focus on context as the always-present con-
tingency in architecture, and Eisenman’s appeal to the universal as a basic
possibility of inter-subjective communication, are the necessary ingredients
for a viable method architectural analysis.

3.8. Architecture, collective systems, and communication

The term Systems appears repeatedly in the discourses of Alexander and Eisen-
man, yet, in both cases the concept remains underdeveloped. Although the
two authors were conspicuously influenced by Systems Theory 38 the concept
stays somewhat marginal to their arguments. Systems are, nevertheless, one
of the connective elements in both theories. As opposed to the structuralist
breeding grounds where one saw an objective structure of requirements, and
the other an underlying, timeless formal order, systems theory and cybernetics
start from a more basic differentiation between “system” and “environment”.
Perhaps the key aspect of this perspective is that the relationship between
those two terms is not structural (dualistic, complementary, and mutually
exclusive), but rather, monadic, recursive or fractal.39

We may begin to approach a conclusion to this section by stating that certain

cybernetic and systemstheoretical terms functioned as an underdeveloped,
yet conspicuous “conceptual wiring” for thinking about architecture in the
1960’s: as a mediating device along the lines suggested by Michael Hays,

38.  Alexander being the most explicit about it, through his quotations of Ludwig von Bertanlanffy.

39.  Structuralism poses a categorical difference between structure and subject, or structure and
agency. Even in the work of Anthony Giddens or Pierre Bourdieu -their most recent incarnations-
where the relationship between subject and structure is accepted to be circuitous and reciprocally
constitutive, the categories themselves remain central to the discourse. A system is the environment
of sub-systems, and so forth. See: Niklas Luhmann, Social Systems, (Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 1995). Original publication Soziale Systeme: Grundriss einer Allgemeiner Theorie,
1984. See “Instead of a Preface to the English Edition: On the Concepts of `Subject´ and `Action´”,
pp. xxxvii-xliv.

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“between culture and form”. This reading appears today to be more enabling
and relevant than structuralist and phenomenological matrices. First, because
the problem of determinacy will not play itself out anymore in the context
of a dualism such as structure/subject, or subject/object, but in a collective
field of forces, or interacting agents. This forecloses any lingering possibility
of linearity in a cause-effect explanatory framework. Second, because the
cybernetic/systemstheoretical perspective constructs a transversal plane in
which the differences between culture and nature, autonomy and heteronomy,
are no longer cast as essential, but as evolutionary “states” of a system, the
differences among which can be measured in a non-teleological scale of
sensitivity, interconnectedness and hierarchical organization.
In view of the historical and formal analysis that is to follow, two conse-
quences of this theoretical discussion can be drawn that shall clarify our
understanding of the relationship between form and nomos (or controlling
norms and rules).

a) From Systems to a Collective Brain.

The autonomy of the subject, as thought by Kant in the political framework of
the Enlightenment, has been questioned since the XIXth century by philoso-
phies that sought to contest a fragmented conception of reality. The cybernetic/
systemstheoretical explanation inherits the legacy of XIXth century vitalism,
which postulates that no such thing as an absolute autonomy exists, but only
degrees of autonomy that can be attained within an evolutionary process.
Here, Niklas Luhmann converges with biologists Humberto Maturana and
Francisco Varela on the notion that growing autonomy in systems results
from the crossing of thresholds of complexity in their internal organization.
The example provided by Henri Bergson in his vitalist account of nature,
Creative Evolution, is helpful to illustrate this. Their tendency toward torpor
sluggishness or inability to move- forces plants to adapt or to die within a
given medium, but grants them no capacity to “choose” a more benevolent
environment. On the contrary, the development of central nervous systems
and sensorimotor mechanisms in animals gives them the ability to move,
and so to search for the most favorable conditions according to their vital
requirements. A further escalation in the adaptive capacity of an organized
individual is reached with hominids -and other species- that are not just able
to find the most propitious conditions for survival, but are in fact capable
of transforming their environments to varying degrees, from the scale of a
nest, to a hut, to that of a metropolis, allowing them ever greater freedom
from the conditions of their natural medium. In this context, the histori-
cal institution of architecture can be conceptualized as a semi-centralized
collective system capable of performing of a number of interrelated func-
tions, each of which is itself the result of an array of collaborating agents
or subsystems. These agents include, in different capacities and degrees of
involvement: architects, digital and mechanical machines, professional and
academic institutions, software and protocols, specialized media, theorists,
journalists and opinion makers, social networks, construction technologies,

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Photographs of tree-trunk sections.
Source: Bryan Nash Gill, Woodcut
160
communication and transport infrastructures, but also user groups, com-
merce and industrial networks, civil associations, engineers, accountants,
industrial and construction workers, trade unions, middle managers, and
the list goes on. As we witness the great level of interconnectedness of this
swarm of interacting agents, we may concur with Patrick Schumacher’s view
that the discipline is the very system of communications that mediates and
organizes the activities of a historically growing number of agents. But, since
this system is integrated by many sentient, desiring, information process-
ing entities -some of which are individual human beings, some of which are
collectives of human beings, some of which are human-machine hybrids-,
is it possible, in any sense, to affirm that this system is anything less than
an embodied brain? If it is to be judged by its capacity to sense, transmit
and process information, by its inherent drives and self-criticality, by its
accumulated memory, and by its power to deliver –in the form of buildings,
projects, images, written knowledge, architects, etc.- material organization
and cultural content, the collective brain appears as an apt image.
b) Towards a definition of mapping.
With the idea of the subject understood as an emergent property of a com-
plex system, 40 and that of architecture as a collective “brain” concerned
with delivering material organization, it is possible to go back to the issue of
representation in order to expand it, and reframe it. It is important to note
that by recourse to the map-territory metaphor, cybernetics and systems
theory take the problem of representation away from the realm of culture,
and frame it as special case of a general process of communication. In the
general case –where the form of communication is so basic that no decoding
processes are involved-, information gets transcribed from one medium to
another through force. Thus, for example, while a painter might render his
model according to a complex, idiosyncratic interpretation –so complex, in
fact, that the results might be entirely unpredictable-, a sensitive film ex-
posed to light –an oldstyle photograph- will, in principle, yield a mechanic
inscription of the field under exposure. These types of representation were
studied and classified from the perspective of the newly founded field of
semiotics, by American mathematician and philosopher Charles Sanders
40.  This should be distinguished from the theory of epiphenomenalism, according to which mental
processes do not participate in the causal chain that shapes the physical world. See: Sven Walter,
“Epiphenomenalism”, in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2007). http://www.iep.utm.edu/
 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

Peirce, at the end of the XIXth century. In distinguishing between three

types of signs the symbol, the icon, and the index- Peirce gave a systematic
organization to what would become a central part of the lexicon of late XXth
architecture. In the example above, the pictorial representation –by virtue
of its capacity to produce resemblance- would fall into the category of the
icon, whereas the photographic film –given the comparatively simple mate-
rial reactions through which it generates an image- would be classified as an
index. Peirce defined the index as a special kind of sign in which a physical
trace functions to denote an action or process of communication. Amongst
other examples of this type of sign, he presented that of an “old-fashioned
hygrometer, [which displays] a physical reaction to moisture in the air”. 41
Similarly, a wide range of form-generating processes can be seen as modes
of indexical communication. As a tree grows in a forest, certain aspects of its
formal development index the configuration of its environment. Deforma-
tions in the ring structure of its trunk point to the availability or scarcity of
nutrients and light in the environment. At a cellular level, the tree’s DNA is
itself an index of the adaptive process that occurred along millennia, as the
very species mutates by natural or artificial selection. The form of the tree can
be read as an index of the forces of the environment, but it also constitutes
a map, inasmuch as it acquires a practical purpose –to allow its decoding,
and the reconstruction of the conditions of a past environment, as studied,
for example, by the discipline of Dendrochronology. As can be inferred from
these cases, the index suggests the possibility of a non-representational mode
of communication that is prior to the establishment of a symbolic or iconic
language. Cybernetics and systems theory take this idea of communication
as a point of departure, but, instead of accepting Peirce’s trichotomic hori-
zontal classification, they develop a hierarchical organization between the
different types of signs, such that the index lies at the base, the icon is at the
middle, and the symbol is the topmost element within a scale of complexity,
or as architecture critic Jeffrey Kipnis would have it, “hyperindexicality”.
What this scale ultimately measures is the immediacy of the relationship
between a given territory –or field of reference- and a given map –or field of
inscription. In this context, the arbitrary relationship between the Peircean
symbol and its object –for example between the word “sphere” and any ob-
ject that might be described by it- can be explained as the result of excess of

41.  “An index is a representamen which fulfills the function of a representamen by virtue of a

character which it could not have if its object did not exist, but which it will continue to have just
the same whether it be interpreted as a representamen or not. For instance, an old-fashioned
hygrometer is an index. For it is so contrived as to have a physical reaction with dryness and
moisture in the air, so that the little man will come out if it is wet, and this would happen just the
same if the use of the instrument should be entirely forgotten, so that it ceased actually to convey
any information.” Charles S. Peirce, The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce (Electronic
Edition, 1994): 5.73. Original publication: Harvard University Press, 1931-1935. See also, Charles
S. Peirce, “What is a Sign?” in The Essential Peirce. Vol. 2: Selected Philosophical Writings 1893-
1913. (Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: The Indiana University Press, 1998), available at: http://
www.iupui.edu/~peirce/index.htm; and “Three Trichotomies of Signs”, in Justus Buchler (ed.)
Philosophical Writings of Peirce, (Dover: 1955).

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 indexation, such that the link between the sign and its territorial reference
is increasingly complicated, and eventually lost.

As the material medium in which the communicative processes unfold climbs

up the scale of complexity, then the indexical relationships become less and
less traceable. When this communicative process affects a living being en-
dowed with a centralized nervous system and a brain capable of recording
memories, the causal chain becomes highly convoluted. With the further
evolution of the cortex and the development of complex modes of communi-
cation such as symbolic and phonetic language, art, ritual, religion, etc., the
thinking organism is no longer just a field of inscription of the environment
which, following Bateson we shall call territory (I) but becomes, in itself, a
map-producing entity.42 These artifacts constitute second order maps, and
are closer to what is usually understood by the term representation. Typical
of these maps is the fact that their relationship to territory (I) is mediated by
first level maps, and is therefore highly idiosyncratic. An emergent property
of these maps is what we call abstraction.

But what happens –as is the case with modernity- when second order maps
become self-referential? In other words, what happens when the products of
artistic practice shed their ritualistic, magical, or religious grounding? When,
disembedded from these frameworks, they no longer index directly a terri-
tory of lower denomination, but start to take their own production as their
main referent? This, according to historians of art and architecture,43 is the
moment when the discipline becomes institutionalized. As it develops trea-
tises in which certain segments of the past –initially, classical antiquity- are
pitted and canonized against competing traditions, the system of architecture
acquires critical self-consciousness. A cycle of evaluation and selfcorrection
feeds back on itself creating an increasingly sensitive, differentiated, dis-
criminating, and adaptive disciplinary setup. Artifacts produced within this
context are simultaneously fields of reference and fields of inscription. In
their capacity as the former, they represent a second order territory (which
now includes all the products of cultural modernity) while as the latter they
could be identified as map (III) –an architecture that addresses its environ-
ment on several registers at the same time, but, most uniquely, by way of its
reflection on the plurality of its own constitution.

If, furnished with these concepts, we review the historical framework outlined
above, it is possible to notice that the relationship (a) between map (II) and
territory (I) –i.e., between art, and symbolic representations in general and
the natural world- is different from the relationship (b) between map (III)

42.  This is the trait that Ernst Cassirer identifies as the evolutionary threshold separating the human
from less developed species.

43.  See: Spiro Kostoff, “The Architect in the Middle Ages, East and West”, in Spiro Kostoff (ed.), The
Architect (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), and –in a critical vein- Christopher
Alexander, Op. Cit.

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and territory (II) –between modern art and architecture, and its referent.
While the first relationship can be described as instrumental, the second
one, by virtue of being self-referential, involves an inevitable reflection on
itself, and is therefore inherently critical.44 We may thus arrive at a pos-
sibly novel definition of the nature of architectural design, as a problem of
indexical map-making in modern culture. If it is assumed that both kinds of
relationships, (a) and (b), need to be resolved interactively, the fundamental
challenge involved in making this map is to come up with a formula about
their integration. The dual nature of this map is implied by the fact that its
instrumentality is oriented toward the future (that is, by an intention, or
project), but its critical function is framed by its past. Thus, the system of
architecture must always involve a contraction of time, in which both an en-
vironment (territory I) and its critical evaluation (territory II) are registered
-however, only the latter process occurs on a conscious level.

Although this understanding of architecture is predicated on the amplification

and conceptual synthesis of propositions by Peter Eisenman and Christopher
Alexander, its explanatory capacity is not limited by the theoretical concerns
of its forbearers. The problems faced by the architectural discipline within the
historical period considered in this study, far exceed the polemic of whether
form should be understood as a function of a contingent environment, or
if it is to be grounded on universal syntactic structures. The search that
characterizes postwar architectural culture –as expressed by the networked
activities and preoccupations of the late Le Corbusier, critics such as Reyner
Banham and Sigfried Giedion, and perhaps most importantly, the contribu-
tions of the British art scene and Team X- can be described as an attempt to
redefine the territory of architecture, and to adjust its mapping techniques
to suit the new conditions. Such refocusing shifts the field of reference of
architecture from a universal idea of the individual and the collective, to a
locally inflected conception. Mapping techniques proliferate into a variety
of sensitive devices (supported by the adequate political climate and the
contributions of the human sciences), but the effect of this does not always
translate into more intricately articulated maps. If a certain tension towards
the past emerges in projects where social containment and preservation seem
to be the necessary choice (as is the case with most architectures of complex
form), a utopian drive toward uniformity and blankness will support the pos-
sibility of transient or eventual formations of the collective (from Mies van
der Rohe to Aldo Rossi); neither of the two tendencies displaying a clearly
defined political alignment.

44.  In Peircean terms, neither of these relationships (a and b) would be indexical, for he defines the
index in terms of an unmediated material relationship. The relationship of the index to its referent
is what he calls “real” or “factic”. It constitutes a “true symptom”, in that it exists independently of
the conditions of its interpretation. According to this definition, a complex phenomenon such as
architecture cannot be reduced to a mere imprint or trace of a simple pattern of physical activity. We
shall, however, expand Peirce’s idea of the index to include also events that happen in the context of
a simulated (or imagined) material environment. If the latter is the case, both relationships (a) and
(b) could be seen as indexical.

163
 But the concept of the map, as outlined above, does not exhaust itself in de-
scribing forms of architectural organization or in the inscription of the forms
of the collective. Because of its versatility it is also germane to a description
of organizations conceived as being purposely open to change. In fact, it can
be argued that one of the key issues pertaining to the design of collective
housing boils down to the question of whether (or under what circumstances)
it is possible for a map to be positively synthesized by architecture -or if this
task is impossible and should be left open to whatever forces are assembled
by the general collective. The latter, of course, has been claimed repeatedly
during the course of the last 50 years. Is this expressive of a healthy process
of self-reflection by architecture –and the ensuing recognition of its limita-
tions-, or does it express a will to self-elimination experienced by a function
system that no longer feels it is able to deliver what is expected from it?
It is within the scope of the map’s broad conceptual functionality that the
following sections will seek to probe architecture’s capacities in dealing with
the problem of collective habitation.

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4. Erskinean Isomorphisms (1969-1982)
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This section analyzes the relation between the sources, ambitions, and
mechanisms that mobilized the production of a paradigmatic example of post-
fordist housing in England, and its form. The need to increase the complexity of
architecture in the 1960’s elicited a search to identify novel vectors of material
and social differentiation. Ralph Erskine’s project for Byker is emblematic of
this search. In Byker, information of various sorts was harnessed to generate
a radical formal heterogeneity. An increasingly scientific representation
of the user, an arsenal of disciplinary formulae (in the form of typological,
compositional, and iconic constrainsts), and empirical data gathered locally
were leveraged to induce this condition. Although it has been argued that local
influences were particularly relevant, Byker owes its interest to the variety
and hybridity of its fields of reference. The mobilization of the user is proven
to be less effective as an empirical source for the mapping of social forms, and
more productive as the addressee of a synthetic imagination of what those
forms ought to be.

In the preceding chapters the thesis has focused on two main issues. In the
first place, it has dealt with characterizing the contribution to architectural
discourse made by certain members of the post-CIAM organization known
as Team 10. From the broad spectrum of problems raised by Team 10 dur-
ing the 1950’s and 1960’s, the first chapters of the thesis focused specifically
on the ramifications of their conception of the architectural subject and its
relation to the problem of formal heterogeneity within the purview of col-
lective housing. The characterization of Team 10’s contribution has been
based both on the accounts of the protagonists of those events, and on a
number of analyses produced by historians, theorists and commentators
who wrote shortly thereafter. Exposed by such investigation is the fact that
the practice-centered conception of architecture that had been installed by
CIAM was to be taken up and prolonged by Team 10. Yet, this extension of the
ethos of CIAM would unfold in a context marked by renewed representations
of society and the individual. The post-war urbanite that these architects
sought to address could no longer be couched in terms of a Simmelian blasé
individual1 -a metropolitan newcomer whose perceptual apparatus had to
grapple with the onslaught of stimuli of the surrounding city-, but could be
cast rather as a fully adapted consumer, for whom the metropolis constituted
a natural habitat -a hunting ground replete with opportunities for upward
social mobility. With architecture’s primary field of reference undergoing
such profound reformulation, the discipline and its objects could not emerge
unaffected. The post-war subjectivity was captured by such expressions

1.   “... the metropolis is also the peculiar seat of the blasé attitude. In it is brought to a peak, in a
certain way, that achievement in the concentration of purchasable things which stimulates the
individual to the highest degree of nervous energy. Through the mere quantitative intensification
of the same conditions this achievement is transformed into its opposite, into this peculiar adaptive
phenomenon -the blasé attitude- in which the nerves reveal their final possibility of adjusting
themselves to the content and the form of metropolitan life by renouncing the response to them”.
See: Georg Simmel, “The Metropolis and Mental Life”, in Georg Simmel. On Individuality and Social
Forms. Edited and with an Introduction by Donald N. Levine (Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 1971): 330. Essay originally published as “Die Grosstadt und das Geistesleben” (1903).

169
 as Pop Art and the New Brutalism in British culture, by the emergence of
Abstract Expressionism in the US, the Situationist International in France,
and, indeed, by the widespread introduction of the behavioral and human
sciences in the realm of urban and social planning. All of these were cues
outlining the profiles of a creature no longer simply subjected to or even
troubled by the forces of the metropolis. They pointed instead to the figure
of an empowered subject who could deploy the full extent of its psychic and
material resources to actively reclaim and refashion its environment. Such
was the new figure that, consciously or not, architecture had to contend with.

After surveying the historical conditions from which Team 10 evolved its
agendas of individuation and identification, the thesis brought forth a polemic
on the logic of architectural form that was rooted (though it was by no means
limited to it) in the fastly expanding Anglo-saxon academic world. Even though
this polemic was contemporaneous with the evolution of the work of Team
10, their exchanges appeared to have been scarce.2 This divergence may be
attributed to the fact that the polemic in question was not concerned with
redefining architecture’s field of reference or with extrapolating the formal
consequences of such refocusing. By constrast to the anti-academic ethos
that CIAM had passed on to the Team 10 generation, the interest of architects
like Christopher Alexander and Peter Eisenman lay in formulating a theory
of architectural form of universal applicability. Both authors attempted to
craft a discourse that would be independent from issues of iconicity or from
a given conception of the discipline’s social and technological role. Further-
more, even though their work holds diammetrically opposed views of the
nature of architecture, they both relied on concepts from emerging fields
such as cybernetics, linguistics, and systems theory. In this, they exhibited
an interest in advanced scientific knowledge as the model by which to fashion
a theoretical framework for architecture. Bringing these fields to bear on the
issue of form generation, the work of both Alexander and Eisenman helps
to outline a more thorough and complex picture of the cultural environ-
ment in which the mature production of Team 10 members evolved. Even
if unacknowledged, their influences on the work of the members of Team
10 –or rather, the influence of the whole cultural setup of which they took
part- exposes the agency of an unconscious matrix that must be called up
in order investigate the architectural thinking of their age. Properly woven
together, the notions that Alexander and Eisenman developed in Cambridge
(UK) and Cambridge (US) can be used to substantiate a method of investi-
gation through which to cast a different light on the emerging post-fordist

2.  Christopher Alexander participated in the 1962 meeting of Team 10 at the castle of Royeaumont,
as documented in Alison Smithson’s Team 10 Meetings 1954-1984. At the meeting he presented
work he was conducting at Cambridge University –a presentation received with suspicion, if not
scepticism, for its overly academic stance. Alexander was issued the recommendation to test his
hypothesis by building. His own acquaintance with the work of The Smithsons is also documented in
Notes on the Synthesis of Form, where he quotes their essay “Criteria for Mass Housing” (Ch. 8, n.
1). Eisenman wrote a lenghty article on the Smithsons work on housing published in the first issue of
Oppositions in 1971, but a synergy never appears to have materialized.

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 architectural sensibility of the late 1960’s. The application of ideas related
to the diagrammatic control of architectural form –central to Alexander’s
discourse- and to indexical mapping as the basis of a non-representational
architectural language –foundational in Eisenman’s work-, in fact, seem
to be key to understanding the processes of formal differentiation operat-
ing in the design of post-war collective housing. If such were the case, the
standard narrative that pits brutalism against empiricism, systems against
picturesque, or humanist against technocratic ideologies, would be proven
incomplete –if not misguided.

In what follows the thesis sets out to show that some of the oppositions by
which established camps of architectural ideology have been delineated
can no longer be sustained. Focusing on Ralph Erskine’s redevelopment
project for the area of Byker, in Newcastle upon Tyne –by most accounts
one of the greatest exemplars of socially aware, neohumanist architecture-,
the analysis shall demonstrate that the estate designed at Tyneside resulted
from the application of concepts that exceed any possible reduction to its
alleged stylistic and ideological affiliations. It will become evident that the
prominence achieved by Erskine’s project is more than just a consequence
of its declared ideology or practical disposition; it is also the outcome of its
reliance on knowledge that had circulated for a number of years in scientific
and academic milieus, and was increasingly becoming part of mainstream
culture. Ultimately, the exacerbated architectural heterogeneity of Byker
foreshadowed the arrival of post-fordism: a new mode of production that
would bring together neo-humanist ideals of individuation and local sensitivity
with the reality of the machinic phylum ushered in by the rise of computa-
tion, digitalization and new media. Byker can thus be said to have marked a
turning point in architectural culture. It corresponds to the maximum level of
realization of the ideals that Team 10 had elaborated since the 1950’s, to the
degree that it would almost seem to have exhausted them (not surprisingly,
Team 10 meetings ended in 1981, a year before Byker was finished). But it
also leads into a new scenario where the issues of identity and heterogeneity
would be taken up and made central to a historical project that extends into
the present time. In this sense, the question remains open as to whether the
phase inaugurated by Byker’s design and construction can be conceptualized
in terms that rely neither on associations with the past, such as post-fordism
or post-modernism, nor simply in exposing a hybrid cultural panorama, or
one of greater complexity. In other words, can the phase of architectural
history that began somewhere between the late 1960’s and the early 1970’s
be described on its own conditions? By what theoretical framework can the
evolution in the modes of heterogeneity production that have occurred since
the 1970’s be accounted for? A speculative answer to those questions will be
attempted in the closing section of the dissertation. Meanwhile, the present
section will look at Byker in its specificity, seeking to map out its position in
relation to the issues of identification and user appropration. The analysis

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will reveal how the project problematizes the idea of the map by playing with
the ambiguous relationship between its understanding as a representation
of an existing (social) territory, and its capacity to plot out a different condi-
tion by radiating out, as it were, its formal complexity, onto the social field.

4.1 Recalling Byker

Preparatory Actions
On approaching Ralph Erskine’s project for the redevelopment of the Byker
area in Newcastle upon Tyne the researcher is greeted with an abundant stock
of literature and graphic documentation. Amongst these materials can be
found several narratives by historians and critics of architecture, as well as
first-person accounts by Erskine himself, former members of his staff, and
other individuals involved in the undertaking. Moreover, the project has
been treated by numerous overviews of 20th century architecture and city
planning3. Yet, given that as of 2014 no comprehensive, book-length study
has been published on it, a retrospective look on the conditions of its com-
ing into being must rely on networking a widely dispersed set of resources 4.

3. Byker has an ambiguous state in the historiography of recent architecture. If by the time of its
completion some of the canonic histories of XXth century architecture had already been written or
were well advanced (such as Kenneth Frampton’s 1982 Critical History, and Manfredo Tafuri and
Francesco Dal Co’s 1976 Contemporary Architecture), their obliteration of Erskine’s name suggests
that his contribution was not held in unanimous esteem. In Modern Architecture: A Critical
History, Frampton neglected Erskine’s individual contributions as well as his participation in the
production of Team 10 -which is otherwise given detailed attention. In Modern Architecture since
1900 William Curtis gave certain prominence to Byker, affirming that, ‘of the various ‘anti-heroic’
housing schemes of the 1970s, Byker was one of the most successful socially and architecturally’.
Italian scholar Leonardo Benevolo mentioned Erksine and his Byker project in his History of
Moden Architecture (revised, 1997) only in passing. Conversely, Peter Hall saw Byker, in Cities of
Tomorrow (1988) as ‘one of the most extraordinary structures ever created in any city, let alone by a
public housing authority’. Writing an introduction to his AD monograph on Erskine (1977), Charles
Jencks held that Byker heralded a post-modern attitude toward collective housing and had thus
the potential to become as influential as the Stuttgart Weissenhof exhibition of 1927. Toward the
early 1990’s, Spanish historian Josep María Montaner described Erskine as a member of the “third
generation” of modern architects along with Leslie Martin, Eero Saarinen, Kenzo Tange, Georges
Candilis, J. B. Bakema, Denys Lasdun, Aldo van Eyck, Giancarlo de Carlo, the Smithsons, and James
Stirling, among others, and labelled Byker “spectacular... it’s morpholgy approaches the versatility
of spontaneous architecture”. In recent years, an agreement seems to have emerged regarding the
historical relevance of the project as proven by the canonical status granted to it by texts such as
Peter Rowe’s Modernity and Housing (1992), where Byker is singled out as a successful exemplary
case in dealing with a “rising social pluralism and the expressive needs of local communities”.
Likewise, works of lesser academic ambition but extensive redearship -such as Key Urban Housing
of the Twentieth Century, by Hilary French (2008), or the recent Ten Stories of Collective Housing
(2013)- seem to confirm the broad influence of Erskine’s project.

4. A separate note should be made regarding literature on Byker as published on academic and
professional journals. This literature is extensive too and no single listing exists that condenses it.
That being said, I have conducted a comprehensive scanning of libraries and databases in Chile,
Argentina, USA, UK and Switzerland, which, together with a bibliography provided by Roger

173
Killingworth Estate. General plan (1968). As can be surmised from these, Erskine had been driven to Sweden in 1939
by “British conservatism” and an interest in Swedish socialism. 5 Setting up
his own office in the small town of Drottningholm on the outskirts of Stock-
holm, after a period of acclimatization during the war , Erskine managed

Tillotson, architect-in-charge for large sections of Byker, made it possible to compile a list of 65
articles focusing specifically on it, that were published in Britain, Denmark, Sweden, Finland,
Germany, France, Italy, USA, Canada, Argentina, Chile, and Japan. Literature on Byker is further
expanded by the two existing books on Erskine, one of them by Professor Peter Collymore (published
separately in English and German), and a second one by the Swedish architect and critic Mats
Egelius (published separately in Swedish and English). See: Peter Collymore, The Architecture of
Ralph Erksine (London: Academy Editions, 1994), and Mats Egelius, Ralph Erksine, Architect
(Stockholm: Byggförlaget and Swedish Museum of Architecture, 1990). Egelius has contributed
to several other publications on Byker, most significantly the monographic issue of Architectural
Design Vol. 47, No. 11-12 (1977), and the monographic issue of Global Architecture - GA,  No. 55
(1982). He has also published shorter pieces such as “Housing and Human Needs: the work of
Ralph Erskine (with original sketches by Ralph Erskine)”, in Architecture for People. Explorations
in a New Humane Environment (London: Studio Vista, 1980). Jointly, Collymore and Egelius’s
books provide a useful overview of Erskine’s work, on which I have relied, in part, for this chapter.
However, their critical appraisal of his production is limited as they both oscillate between
description and acclaim, failing to provide an account of Byker that deviates from that offered by the
architects. Worthy of mention as well is the Fraunhofer Society’s 1993 printed bibliography indexing
books and articles on Ralph Erksine. This booklet from Germany’s largest index of architecture and
construction publications lists 93 entries including the main monographs by Collymore and Egelius,
as well as many other pieces in magazines from Sweden, England, Italy, Denmark, Norway, France,
the United States, and Germany. The material on Byker is only a small fraction of the overall list.
See: Ursula Schreck-Offermann, Architekten - Ralph Erskine / (Informationszentrum Raum und
Bau der Fraunhofer Gesellschaft). 3rd edition (Stuttgart: IRB Verlag, 1993).  

5. See: “Ralph Erksine talks to the AJ”, The Architects’ Journal (3/3/1976): 417. See also Mats
Egelius, who points out that while “in Germany the Nazis were arming, which Erskine was certainly
aware of; Sweden was neutral and had not involved in a war for 125 years. Considering that he was a
pacifist, these circumstances were certainly significant for his decision to start his career in Sweden”.
(1990): 8.

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to forge for himself a reputation as a socially committed architect since the

mid 1950’s, but became known on a broader scale through his participation
in the CIAM congress in Oterlo ’59, and later through his attendance to
the meetings of Team 10.6 Despite having a British background, Erskine’s
career in the UK would only take off in the late 1960’s, when he was able to
design and build two projects in England, Clare Hall -a student residence
built in Cambridge in 1968-, and a small housing estate in the New Town
of Killingworth, north of Newcastle, obtained in 1969 through an invited
competition. The warm reception with which these projects were met opened
the path to the much larger commission for Byker. Overall, however, these
conditions would make it possible for Erskine to approach the situation in
Newcastle with an autonomous intellectual standing and a certain leeway
in establishing the terms under which the commission would be taken up.
Likewise, the administration of the city of Newcastle would prove to be a
key player in creating an environment conducive to the fruition of the re-
development of Byker.7 Following the reforms spearheaded by labor-party

Killingworth Estate (1968).

leader T. Dan Smith in the early 1960’s (a sort of English “Robert Moses”
who sought to recast the image of Newcastle as “the Brasilia of the north”,
and for that end created a powerful planning department), Arthur Grey, his
conservative successor, was responsible for inviting Erskine, in September
of 1968, to submit a reappraisal of the proposals that had been put forward
by the Housing Architect’s Department in March 1967.8 After being offered

6.  This early reputation was not uncontroversial. While a Swedish observer as Egil Holmsen accused
his housing project at Gyttorp of “failing to respect architectural modernism and borrowing effects
from other styles of architecture”, Ulla Molin, editor of the magazine Home in Sweden was part
of a group of strong supporters of Erskine´s work. See: Mats Egelius, Ralph Erskine, Architect
(Stockholm: Byggförlaget, 1990): 43-45.

7. As recounted by Lionel Escher, the process of reconstruction and urban renewal that swept over
England after WWII, began somewhat later in Newcastle, since the city had received almost no
damage by air raids. (Escher: 176).

8. According to Mats Egelius, “the choice of an internationally well-known designer was also an
appropriate solution for the Conservatives to equal the bold engagement of Arne Jacobsen by Labor

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 the job, Erskine’s office staff spent a month living in Newcastle, gathering
information for what would become a set of guidelines for a redevelopment
strategy -as opposed to an architectural or urban design plan. His proposal
was first issued in a memorandum dated November 1968 9. It involved a se-
ries of priorities and operational conditions -a rare occurence in the British
context, which was focused on formal rather than procedural issues-, such
as the establishment of an office in the area, the need to hold meetings in the
office rather than at the Town Hall, the preservation of a number of exist-
ing buildings deemed of value for the community (such as baths, churches,
a bowling green, pubs, community centers), preservation of the community
structure as physical units, a “rolling program of building demolitions and
handovers” meant not to force anybody away from the site, consultation and
participation processes.10

1. Byker. Plan of Intent as of 1970. In May 1969 Erksine was effectively commissioned as Consultant Architect
and asked to come up with a Plan of Intent (PI) based on his preliminary
appraisal. By September of that year he had set up shop at a former funeral

(for a never realised design of the city centre); Ralph Erskine could fulfill the positiion of both being
internationally well-known and selemployed” (1977): 839.

9.  See: Egelius (1977): 839.

10.   Collymore (1994): 15.

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Byker. Pilot Scheme (Janet Square)

(1971).
Photo: Julian Varas

parlor situated in the middle of the area to be cleared and redeveloped.11

Vernon Gracie, his younger associate and site architect moved into the
flat above the office, thus establishing a permanent presence in the area,
which would last until the project was prematurely finished in 1982. 12 The
Plan of Intent was presented to the Newcastle Corporation in early 1970,
and work on the 81 hectare site commenced shortly thereafter, carrying on
almost uninterruptedly for twelve years. As a planning instrument, the PI,
was not a “master plan, but rather a means of providing a sufficiently flex-
ible framework for the redevelopment, so that early experiences could be
used to develop later stages, both in terms of observed changes in people’s
ambitions, changes in needs and therefore changes in physical planning
decisions”.13 Furthermore, the PI stated that the general programmatic goal
was the provision of 2500 to 3000 dwelling units and their attendant com-
munity facilities, and suggested a complex phasing strategy. Approximately
80% of the dwellings would be built as low-rise terraces or semi-detached
houses, while the rest, mostly smaller apartments, would be piled along the
edge of the site creating a visual and sound-insulating building. The latter
would shelter the low-rise component of the development, creating a social
and environmental micro-climate, building upon Erskine’s earlier studies for
high-latitude cities. The possibility of revitalisation -as opposed to clearance-
“was given a great deal of thought and time” but was ultimately dropped due
to the poor site planning and material conditions of the existing terraces,
which dated back to the 1860’s.14

11.   See: Drage (2008).

12.   “The main reasons really for establishing the office within Byker were, firstly that it would enable
us to get to know the user client at first hand and secondly to try and demistify the architects’ role.
Thirdly, [...] formed a point at which the local authority could come down into the area; officers
could also operate from within the area and the office could form a pressure center where people
would come to express their opinions and enable us to determine more accurately the nature of their
requirements.” Gracie (1980)

13.  See: Housing Review (11-12/1974): 152.

14.  Ibid. Besides being dull, decrepit, and deficiently serviced, at least from a 1960’s perspective, the
existing Victorian terraces at Byker shared, with the interwar “heroic” approach to collective housing,
more than might be apparent at first sight. Their logic of mechanical repetition refers to a conception
of the collective that would remain surpringly continuous until the end of WWII.

177
 A tentative layout and phasing strategy attached to the PI broke down the
redevelopment site into twelve autonomous areas. Following this, design work
commenced effectively in 1970.15 The initial steps focused on a small pilot
project called Janet Square, which encompassed 46 dwellings on a patch of
previously cleared land at the south east corner of the site. After a thorough
“door-to-door” canvassing, a number of families volunteered to take part
in a test-bed experiment meant to validate some initial hypotheses. The
pilot scheme would consist of a series of maisonettes arranged in terraces
forming semi private pedestrianized courtyards. Importantly, they would
install design themes that later proliferated throughout the project, such
as the pitched roofs, a material palette based on the composition of brick,
timber and Eternit sheet surfaces, and colored timber “add-ons”. By contrast
to much of the later design work carried out at Byker, the process at Janet
Square involved frequent exchange between the architects and the selected
group of tenants. As relayed by the protagonists themselves, the experience
gained during this phase revealed not only unforeseen preferences and
behavioral responses from the users, but also exposed the fact that Byker’s
social composition was not as homogenous as had been assumed. Indeed,
the tenants who participated in the pilot scheme felt that their relocation to
the southern edge of the site had implied a social downgrading, as this area
had “in their opinion, a distinctly lower social status” than those from which
they hade moved out, even if this meant moving just a few blocks away. 16

Innovations in Management Practices

If there is a base to the myth of user participation on which Byker made
its reputation, it was laid by Erskine’s intial statement of intent, and then
cemented during this phase. Several meetings were necessary, starting on
May 1st 1970, in order to create a atmosphere of trust among the initial par-
ticipants in the pilot scheme experiment. From then on regular encounters
with the tenants took place at the architect’s office or directly on-site, where
design matters would be discussed and consensus arrived at -arguably few
of them relating to planning issues, most of them dealing instead with mate-
riality, fixtures, dimensions, equipment, and so forth.17 Moreover, since the
moment users moved into their houses, in July 1971, the architects initiated
post-occupancy evaluations, and later stressed that this had been a significant
factor in their learning process. Corrective measures suggested by findings

15.   Some of these drawings were published in: Giancarlo De Carlo, “Byker”, Spazio e Società Vol. 1
No. 2 (4/1978): 5-40. Of approximately 60 publications on Byker that have been surveyed, De Carlo’s
is the most extensive and detailed one.

16.      See: Housing Review (1974): 152. The relation between topography and social status in Byker
was tackled by the designers, who saw to it that some of the most signficant community services
would be located on the strongly stigmatized southern area.

17.      Some exceptions took place, for example the rejection by the tenants to incroporate a “hobby
room” that had been proposed by the architects, and which was finally incorporated as a local feature
throughout the entire project. Housing Review (1974): 153.

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Byker. Phasing of redevelopment areas. Drawing by author.

179
 of the post-occupancy evaluation turned out to be inapplicable because no
special budgetary provisions had been made in advance. After this initial
experience, the participatory dynamic in Byker waned considerably. As is
known, the project’s iconic component is an extensive linear building wind-
ing along the northern edge of the site –“the wall”. Erskine believed that this
building type was too complex to be submitted to a process of consultation
with the users, and explicitly excluded the possibility from the PI. 18 But this
did not mean suspending interaction with the prospective tenants. On the
contrarty, an innovative practice was introduced during construction of the
first phase of the perimeter block, in 1972. A growing anxiety had emerged
among tenants, who were eager to receive equivalent treatment to the one
dispensed to residents in the Pilot Scheme. In order to respond to this,
the architects took advantage of an unforeseen delay in construction and

Byker. Pilot Scheme (Janet Square). ca

set up what would become one of Byker’s hallmark innovations in housing
1972. management: the six-month forward allocation policy. Even a critic of the
operation like Peter Malpass has recognized that forward allocation was a
relevant novelty introduced by the architects, who aimed to make the transi-
tion process more tolerable for the future occupants. 19 In practice, forward
allocation turned out to be a complex undertaking that the Housing Depart-
ment resisted harshly on grounds that it would tax their flexibility and their
ability to react to unforeseen events, such as construction delays, or housing
emergencies.20 The initiative ultimately prevailed and was deemed successful,
for it helped residents to alleviate worries associated with the uncertainties
of living in a clearance zone, and built up a sense of positive anticipation in
Erskine’s site office entry door.
relation to the construction process of the dwellings. Tenants were afforded
ample time to plan the allocation of a special budget for moving expenses
(carpeting, furniture, etc.) and for making necessary practical arrangements.
In a effort to keep alive the dynamic of involvement and participation once the
main organizing principles for the project had been laid out, Erskine’s office
promoted a number of community contact and outreach activities. Among these
were children’s drawing sessions, festivals, and the construction of a children
play area near the site office. But perhaps most significant were the creation of
reference groups and liason committees.21 These smaller groups facilitated the
process by conveying information to the tenants, and back to the architects.

18.      Ibid.

19.      “Forward allocation meant informing tenants in advance of completion which dwelling
they were to be offered… The benefit of forward allocation is that it takes some of the worry and
uncertainty out of waiting, which is particularly valuable for people living with active clearance.
Without the architects’ pressure this innovation would not have come about.” Malpass (1979): 968.

20.      As recounted by the architects, meetings would be held in their office with small “allocation
groups” six months in advance of delivery. Detailed graphic explanations of the forthcoming
accommodations were given by the architects, supported by Housing Department staff. Tenants
then had the option to accept or refuse the proposed dwelling, and even “trade” their units amongst
themselves without affecting the overall dynamic. Housing Review (1974): 155.

21.      See: Michael Drage, “Byker: Surprising the Colleagues for 35 Years. A Social History of Ralph
Erskine’s Arkitektkontor AB in Newcastle”, in Twentieth Century Architecture 9: Housing the
Twentieth Century Nation. Edited by Elaine Harwood and Alan Powers (London: Twentieth Century
Society, 2008): 154.

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Byker. Original published drawings showing the evolution of the masterplan between 1970 and 1976.

181
Byker. Ralph Erskine’s site office in an
old funeral parlor.

Their functioning and contribution, however, proved very limited.22 At any rate,
the architects continued to mediate in the relationship between the tenants and
the various agencies of the local administration by providing a service they
labeled as “participatory”, which consisted of keeping users informed of the
advances of the process and gathering information necessary for the design on
the basis of direct contact. This is evidence of Erskine’s pragmatic conception
of participation as a tool to bridge the distance between architects’ views on
habitation (inevitably influenced by their being “part of the establishment”)
and those of the users. For Erskine, participatory processes were a means
by which information, though not necessarily power, could be moved across
the societal divide separating the architect from the working class tenant.23
Throughout the 1970’s, this ethos was sustained by the office, even at the
expense that “community participation work [had to be] subsidized from the
architectural fees, helped by the low overheads of the on-site office”.24 In sum,
while the pursuit of increased heterogeneity was seen during the 1960’s as a
necessary response to the image of a society requiring greater opportunities for
individualization and identification, Byker inverted the relationship between
user participation and architectural form that was characteristic of the
more utopian architectures of its time: instead of thinking that participation
would foster architectural complexity and social legitimacy -as did the likes
of Yona Friedman and Lucien Kroll-, Byker utilized complexity to instill user
involvement and raise pubic interest in the project.

Strategy of Slowness
Peter Rowe has adequately characterized the long-term development of the
project for Byker as “an architecture of process”. While he certainly contributes
to reinforcing some of its mythic dimensions, for instance when he affirms
that “user autonomy, though by no means absolute, was given considerable
attention”, the significance of the protracted design and construction process

22.      Housing Review (1974): 154.

23.      See: The Architects’ Journal (3/3/1976): 417.

24.      Drage (2008): 153.

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Byker. Ralph Erskine’s site office in

an old funeral parlor. View of the
construction site ca. 1975 from inside the
office space.

for the formal and social outcome at Byker cannot be disputed.25 Furthermore,
it is clear from the stipulations of the PI that the strategy of slowness was not
accidental: the architects were aware that the enterprise would take several
years, but rather than striving for efficiency, they turned this condition to their
advantage and let the project take over their lives for more than a decade.26
However, this predisposition allowed the project to become more than just
a metaphor of habitation as process. For, if the rustic, makeshift aesthetic
of “sheddery and pergolation”27 employed at Byker efficiently summoned an
imaginary of adjustment, adhocism, and change, the complexity of the scheme
lay ultimately in the actual variety of dwellings, building types and urban spaces
developed by the team, the sheer number of which is heroic and would have
been unthinkable had the project not been designed and detailed during the
course of such long period of time. Such extreme diversity involved even a
subtle evolution in the project’s expressive traits that becomes evident when
the initial segment of the Perimeter Wall building –which went on site in 1971-
is compared to the Dunn Terrace area, which was built between 1976 and 1978:
while the overall premises are consistent, the graphic patterns have become
more explicit (see page 184), the plan layout is now stricter, and new typologies
have been introduced. At any rate, the project was able to garner momentum
to overcome stoppages and disruptions that hit it from the beginning. The Wall
suffered a delay already in 1971, as a result of a shortage of labor and materials
caused by the ongoing building boom. The Kendall Street low-rise area started
in 1972, its first units handed over in late 1973, the final ones in 1975. In 1974
the Labour Party regained municipal power and, after some hesitation, offered
to extend the brief for the construction of the southern sectors of Byker.
Meanwhile, a large part of the northern half had already been finished and was

25. In 1981 Erskine stated that, “the experiences evidence that the tempo of the project is an
important factor in participatory processes. If it happens too fast, it hinders a true learning process;
while a slow progession causes lack of interest.” See: “Afterthoughts on Byker: reflections on its
participatory process”, in Leuven Seminar on Participatory Design, edited by Jan Schreurs, Marcel
Smets, and Lode Janssens (Leuve: Acco, 1981) :24.

26.     Rowe (1993): 242. This attitude suggests the idea that the user autonomy referred to by Rowe
may not be more than a fantasy, since, in fact, their identification with architecture appears to be
more a measure of success of the project’s intentions, or a byproduct of the architects’ commitment
to the work, than an innate impulse.

27.      See: Reyner Banham, “The Great Wall of Tyne”, New Society Vol. 31 No. 644 (5/2/1975).

183
Evolution of brickwork patterning.
Comparative study between two sections of the Perimeter block building.

Shipley Walk and Long Headlam, 1971-1974.

Graphic patterning of the outer face of earlier stage Perimeter Block sections. Notice the abstract paterning of the surfaces.

Dunn Terrace, 1975-1978.

Graphic patterning of the outer face of later stage Perimeter Block sections. Notice the appearance of lettering and overscales arrows.

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185
 officially inaugurated by the Duke of Edimburgh in 1974. The extension of the
contract for south Byker allowed Erskine to reassess the plans, as a result of
which the program was enriched with numerous non-housing components.
Between 1976 and 1981 the remaining project areas were built: Dunn Terrace
with 273 units, Bolam, Chirton with 158 units, Carville, and Avondale with 135
units (see page 179). Some of the smaller areas on the south half of Byker
were not finished because of conflicts with the contractor (Janet Street), or
because of the change in political climate due to the rise to power of Margaret
Thatcher, in 1979, which led to all funding for council housing to be frozen –this
sealed the fate of Clydesdale and Harbottle. The Byker team finally broke up
into two independent practices, The Byker Group, and Vernon Gracie, the site
office that had opened in 1970 closing for good in 1984.28 The days since then
have seen ups and downs for Byker, which enjoyed a “period of grace” until the
late 1980’s. A survey conducted by Robin Abrams in 2001 showed that social
distress had erupted during the 1990’s, leading to a large number of boarded-up
or vandalized dwellings, especially in the lower areas of the redevelopment. This
situation prompted the author of the survey to wonder if there was in fact any
difference between Byker and the supposedly much rougher brutalist estates
of the 1960’s.29 Such differences seem to have been confirmed when English
Heritage boldly listed the estate in 2007, making it the largest single building
comlpex to be listed in Europe. As a result of this, new funding has flowed into
Byker significantly improving its material conditions.30

Ralph Erskine, project for Arctic Town

(1958).

28.      Michael Drage (2008): 160.

29.      See: Robin Abrams, “Byker Revisited”, Built Environment – Perspectives on Housing
Segregation Vol. 29, No. 2 (2003): 123.

30.     As of January 2015, the most up-to-date account of the social conditions in Byker since the
1990’s slump appears to be Sarah Glynn’s “Good Homes: Lessons in Succesful Public Housing from
Newcastle’s Byker Estate” (2011). Available at www.sarahglynn.net (accessed Jan 12 2015).

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Ralph Erskine, project for the New Town

of Svappavaara, Sweden (1961).

4.2 Stalemate of Criticism

By 1979, two years before the completion of the project for Byker, the myth
of user participation as a form of enablement for the residents had been de-
bunked. Even though Erskine himself cannot be charged with having instigated
such myth, the expectations of many observers soon turned into fantasies and
projections that had to be dispelled by the architects, who went on to clarify
publicly that participation was primarily a pragmatic technique for generating
public interest and consensus around the redevelopment initiative. 31 A keen
comentator on the project, professor Peter Malpass published an article in
1979 pointing out that the actual conditions and objectives of participatory
practices in Byker were entirely different from the ambitions of those who
viewed them as a means of redressing the power imbalances between the
architects, the local authorities and the users. 32 From then on, criticism of
Byker got split into three camps: those who, like Malpass, denounced it for
mystification and treason to the cause of political empowerment, those who,
like Reyner Banham, viewed it at the crossroads between the monumental-
ity of the megastructure and an emerging vernacular sensibility, and those
for whom it heralded the rise a “new humanism” -the classical having been
monumental and anthropomorphic, the new one, picturesque and informal.

31.      “It has been said that consensus is the enemy of participation, that participation should be about
uncovering conflicts of interest, discovering differences of opinion. In Byker, the Local Council, by
adopting participation as its own policy, gained the initiative in controlling its structure and course.
Participation in this context is therefore an aspect of urban management, rather than giving people
a decisive voice in their areas.” See: Vernon Gracie, “Pitfalls in Participation: A cautionary tale (of
success)”. (1984): 196.

32.      “Erskine, and in particular his Byker-based colleagues, have lead the field in promoting ways
of involving the public and in spite of the corportation´s conservative approach they have achieved
some definite progress. The local office, the pilot scheme, forward allocation and the architects´
support for institutions such as the liaison committee (a regular forum for exchange of views
between residents and the authority) all represent attempts to make this major redevelopment
Ralph Erskine, project for the village of
scheme less brutalising and more responsive to local needs. Nevertheless … such innovations are
Resolute Bay, nortern Canada, lat. 74º
inadequate to guarantee retention of the community and their true value may be negated if they are North (1973).
taken by others as the model of how to achieve community based renewal”. Malpass (1979): 968-969.

187
Byker. Comparison of the urban fabric
before and after redevelopment.

Having cast aside the idea that Byker’s residents had intervened in fashion-
ing the project in a significant manner, architectural criticism found itself
at a stalemate. For it was either a matter of rejecting the project as being the
embodiment of populist, anti-heroic values, or of admiring it precisely for
those reasons. Indeed, critics, historians and biographers addressing Byker
would insistently underscore its concoction of human values, its “prag-
matic socialism”, its indebtedness to Swedish mid-century empiricism, or
its incipient post-modern sensitivity. This take-it-or-leave-it, ideological
type of criticism, however, fell prey to a quick acceptance of its analytical
categories, and was unable to adumbrate an explanation of the project’s

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 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

Byker. Avondale Road ca. 1965.

success beyond its wholesale identification with certain values, ideologies, Byker. Back of Avondale Road. date
unknow.
or intentions. As a result, Byker has been treated by architectural criticism
as an unproblematic embodiment of the values declared by its authors, and
no significant efforts were undertaken to place it outside of its “natural”
interpretive framework. In particular, what has been lacking is an analysis
of the project through methods capable of uncovering aspects of it that are
proper to its material configuration, yet cannot be accessed through simple
visual experience. Examples of such methods can be found in Robin Evans’
reading of the topology of traditional architectural layouts as the inscription
of a diagram of social behavior, in Nobert Elias’s investigation of the organi-
zation of the Palace of Versailles, or in Peter Eisenman’s reverse engineer-
ing of conceptual relations in Giuseppe Terragni’s Casa Giuliani-Frigerio. 33
Even though Eisenman’s method focuses on critical formal operations and
Elias’ and Evans’ look at collective and unconscious processes transversing
architectural formalization, both methods point to the preeminence of the
generative dimension of the work over and above its perceivable formal at-
tributes. If critical assessment of Byker can be said to have been dazzled by
a conflation of its discourse and its imagery, then calling upon a relational
approach to its study might reveal new leads as to the forces, agencies and
representations that stand behind the project’s configuration. As has been
noted above, user participation can not be dismissed as an active ingredient
in the context of the Byker operation. Yet, its role should be characterized
most adequately as that of a catalyst-in-the-making rather than a source of
information or a significant actor in decision making processes. The proposed
method of analysis thus focuses on the conceptual dimension of design as
having the primal role, whereas the user is seen as an enabling agent, whose
virtue is not so much its capacity to exert a decisive influence on the form of

33.     See: Norbert Elias, The Court Society (Dublin: The University College Dublin Press, 2006).
Published originally in 1969, see esp. chapter III: “Habitational Structures as an Index of Social
Structures”; Robin Evans, “Figures, Doors, and Passages”, in Translations from Drawings to
Buildings and other Essays, cit.

189

Byker back lane. ca. 1970
Byker. Clydesdale Road ca. 1971.
Photo: Sirkka-Liisa Kontinnen.
Byker. Gordon Road ca. 1971.
Photo: Sirkka-Liisa Kontinnen.
Byker. Kendall Street ca. 1971.
Photo: Sirkka-Liisa Kontinnen.
190
the project but to emerge transformed from the process of its production in
positive and possibly unexpected ways.
4.3 Retroactive Tabula Rasa
The analysis that follows emphasizes cultural and disciplinary frameworks
to explain architectural forms in Byker. It does so in order to isolate and
evaluate those frameworks vis-à-vis other forces that may be said to have
influenced the design process. To undertake such an analysis does not imply
the claim that economic and political conditions should be discarded as ir-
relevant. As an example of their significance it should suffice to recall that
if the local administration in Newcastle had not set up the adequate institu-
tional apparatus and political agenda, the “legend” of Byker would never have
come to fruition. More broadly, the Byker operation cannot be accounted
for without setting it in the context of changes undergoing British housing
policy during the decade of 1960. Likewise, the author’s subjectivity and
biography has to be acknowledged as a factor contributing to the definition
of the historical crossroads at which the project inevitably emerges. In this
sense, compelling evidence of the influence of Erskine’s trajectory comes
to light by examining his career-long interest in conflating enclosed urban
forms with specific environmental conditions in order to induce a sense of
collectivity. In the mid 1950’s, when professional commissions temporar-
ily subsided, Erskine became interested in the problem of living in high-
latitudes, and began to develop urban and architectural prototypes with a
focus on producing forms that would enable sociability and communal life
in harsh climatic environments.34 Prioritizing climate over other sources of
constraints, Erksine came up with an urban type for an Arctic City (1958),
that was composed of a linear building deployed along the perimeter of a
roughly circular or poligonal shaped settlement, the inside of which would
be organized through intricate patterns of low rise terraces and individual
houses. Reminiscent of a medieval town, in the precise definition of its en-
closure, and the seeming informality of its internal configuration, this type
would return to be materialized in projects for towns or urban fragments in
Svapavaara (Sweden, 1961), in the project for Resolute Bay (Canada, 1976)
and, most emblematically, in Byker.
However, if history is considered from the point of view of the architectural
discipline, both Erskine’s personal trajectory and the political climate sur-
rounding the commission for Byker appear to have been only the catalysts
and conditions that allowed a disciplinary agenda to find its articulation in
built form. Seen in that light, the project departed not just from the tenets
of interwar CIAM town planning, but also from the more recent propositions
of systems architecture embodied in the work of the Metabolists and in that
of his Team 10 colleagues, Candilis, Josic and Woods, amongst others. An
assessment of the project at the level of large-scale planning and organization
reveals one of multiple strategies by means of which a radically heterogeneous
34.  Mats Egelius (1990): 67-70.
 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

Byker. Organizational grids.

Byker. Built fabric as intended in 1982.

Drawing by author.

environment was produced. The comparison between the preexisting system

of streets and built fabric and the new one drawn up by Erksine provides the
key to understand how the project actualizes values that served to buttress
the reputation of the architecture of social housing in the face of the increas-
ing discredit that had been accruing during the 1960’s. 35 The perception
that the demolition and clearing of the site of Byker would pave the way to
a “Brasilia of the north” –as the aforementioned political slogan wrought
by T. Dan Smith would have it- would need to be set in reverse to acquire
a proper understanding of the operation. Indeed, the massive clearings of
existing housing that began in the late 1960’s were not directed against a
pre-modern, inefficient, or labyrinthian urban fabric, for those were not quite
the characteristics of the old Byker. Erskine’s proposal was set in opposi-
Ebenezer Howard, Group of Slumless
tion to all forms of serial production in housing: both the suspect high-rise Smokeless Cities. Diagram n. 7, from To-
morrow: A Path to Real Reform (1898).
schemes of the 1960’s, and the fordism avant-la-lettre of nineteenth Byker.
The rows of terraced houses that had to come down in order for new Byker to
be erected were catered to the growing class of industrial workers employed in
Newcastle’s shipbuilding yards since the middle of the nineteenth century.36
The dramatic wave of urbanization that accompanied England’s industrial

35.  Suspicion was aimed primarily at high density schemes based on the tower block typology, the Robert Owen, Project for the Ideal
Village of Unity (1817).
production of which peaked in 1966. Studies denouncing their negative influence on health and
social conduct, coupled with decreasing quality in construction standards (exposed by the explosion
and collapse of Ronan Point tower in London in 1968) contributed significantly to this perception.
See: Pearl Jephcott, Homes in High Flats: Some of the Human Problems Involved in Multi-storey
Housing (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1971). For a recent commentary and interpretation of
Jephcott’s work see: Ignaz Strebel and Jane M. Jacobs, “People and Buildings: Pearl Jephcott and
Science of Life in High Flats”, in Candide. Journal for Architectural Knowledge No. 7 (2013).
Robert Owen, Project for New Harmony,
36.  In synchrony with Britain’s exploding industrial and demographic growth, the population of Indiana (ca. 1825).
Newcastle went from 33.322 in 1811 to 309.820 inhabitants in 1931. Demographic information
obtained from the University of Portsmouth’s online atlas www.visionofbritain.org.uk which holds
official census information and topographic surveys of the UK. Retrieved May 22nd, 2014.

191
 revolution since the middle of the eighteenth century had left little room for
anything but the well-known back-to-back typology, at least until the housing
reform movement broke out around 1840. Back-to-back houses were typically
single-frontage, two-story boxes opening onto a small frontyard or directly onto
the street, and lacked facilities such as a WC or running water, the privies being
located at the end of a shared alleyway or courtyard. The urban consequence
of this housing type is well represented in old Byker by a pattern of long and
narrow blocks and streets that ran approximately parallel to the contour lines
of the site. The main thoroughfares would run north-south, across the contour
lines, and would be crossed every 50 meters by a system of east-west roads that
gave access to the majority of the houses. In Byker, however, the prevailing
house type was the Tyneside flat. It consisted of two stacked appartments with
paired doors opening onto the sidewalk. Having no frontyard, their backs were
separated by an alley that provided access to a small yard. In any case, the
quality of old Byker was not only defined by its poor material condition and
Dunn Terrace. Erskine’s design
overlayed on pre-existing urban pattern.

lack of modern facilities, but also by its repetitive, monotonous architectural

patterns. Old Byker was, strictly speaking, a modern urban fabric where
everyone’s houses looked alike, and every street looked similar to most other
streets.

4.4 Continuity and Disjunction

Erskine’s intervention, on the other hand, was informed by urban traditions
that sprang from the nineteenth century critique of the industrial city, and it
advocated a formal return to even earlier sources. His recovery of the socialist
utopian speculations on ideal towns, spanning the projects of Robert Owen
and Charles Fourier to the Garden City of Ebenezer Howard is evident in
the implementation of an enclosed, pedestrianized urban typology. He also
manifested an interest in vernacular, pre-modern sceneries akin to those
animating the British Townscape movement.37 But the sentimentalism and

37.   According to Ralph Erskine himself, the character of Byker was that of “participation, cluster-
grouping, human scale, and an almost medieval strategy of jumble and irregularity”. See: The
Architects’ Journal (3/3/1976).

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 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

idealism conveyed by those images could hardly be reconciled with the brute
fact that, aside from salvaging a handful of meaningful buildings, the project
went on to erase an entire section of the city, including its existing network
of streets. In a sweeping transformation of Byker’s urban texture, only a few
north-south roads were kept as structuring elements. These streets were
utilized as a geometric basis for the organization of the dwellings adjacent
to them or in their vicinity. Typical of the system generated by this strategy
of organization is the production of a number of fault-lines separating areas
of coherent geometry. These fault-lines are materialized in some cases by Dunn Terrace, perimeter block.
streets or smaller pedestrian pathways, and at times acquire a greater width,
functioning as irregularly shaped communal greens, play areas, or simply
green buffer zones. Within the areas of consistent geometry, buildings are laid
out neither in the manner of Zeilenbauten, superblocks, or detached houses,
but as terraces, U-shape and L-shape blocks usually forming courtyards and
providing continuous street frontages. The complexity of the scheme is further
compounded by the one mile long Perimeter Block on the north, and part of the
east, and west, borders of the site. Here, the orthogonal, gridded spaces of the
central areas of Byker come into contact with an autonomous linear element
whose system of continuous geometric regulation allows it to shift repeatedly
between straight and curved conditions. This encounter between a vertical and
a series of horizontal surfaces is not left to chance or conflict, but is mediated
by a series of open buffer zones that prevent a violent clash of scales. Despite
this, the perimeter block and the gridded low-rise neighborhoods do come into
contact at certain points, and their juxtaposition is formally resolved by the
introduction of a transitional building typology called Link Block. Decreasing
in height from five to two levels, the Link Blocks are linear buildings that insert
themselves smoothly within the low-rise areas, bending in plan, whenever
necessary, in order to remain geometrically consistent, either by being tangent
or perpendicular, with the perimeter block at the points where they visually
and functionally connect. The combined effect of these integrated systems
lends the project its primary image as a collection of individually recognizable
urban fragments. And while this strategy of subdivision was pivotal in allowing
the project to be phased over several years, its relevance lies not just on this
practical advantage, but also in the complex effects and possibilities it generates
at the level of identification, orientation and integration. In formal terms, the
interest of the subdivision strategy applied at Byker lies on the ambiguity
between a logic of association among building typologies of similar scale and
footprint, and that of the dialectic among different housing typologies. This
ambiguity affords the possbility of a continuous character for Byker, despite its
broad spectrum of scales, materials, and configurations.

Analyzed in detail in this chapter, the Dunn Terrace area exemplifies the
effort made to formally integrate a series of individual houses, the curvaceous
perimeter block, three link blocks, and the 40 meter high point block located
on the eastern side.38 Worth noticing here is the fact that, while this integration

38.  Utilizing most of the resources and formal arsenal deployed in other parts of Byker, Dunn
Terrace stands as an ideal fragment for a detailed study because it is separated from the rest of the
estate by an old railway line and is thus the most autonomous area formally speaking. Despite this,
it incorporates most of the themes and criteria by which the rest of the project is designed. Dunn
Terrace was also chosen because of the availability of detailed drawings in the various publications of
the project.

193
 creates a cohesive relationship among the various buildings and spaces of Byker,
the relationship between Byker as a whole and its outlying neighborhoods
transitions from a smooth continuity on the southern side, to an abrupt
detachment on the north side, that is generated by the imposing presence of
the perimeter block. Presented often as a pragmatic response to environmental
conditions (a planned motorway on the north and the unfavorable orientation)
this uneven consolidation of the border is, perhaps, the single most decisive
identity-constructing operation carried out at the scale of the entire estate.
Beyond pragmatic and metaphorical interpretations39, the sharp definition
of the north border is consistent with the overall purpose of creating various
degrees and modes of formal differentiation in order to translate the singularity
and complexity of the structure (real or imagined) of the existing community
into a new material organization. However, the effects of the operation remain
ambiguous, insofar as the Perimeter Block works both as an isomorphic emblem
of the community as a whole, and as a device that consolidates and segregates
specific groups of user-residents in order to differentiate the community
from within. The fact that the definition of the border becomes fuzzy on the
south edge of Byker, where the Perimeter Block typology is absent, must be
intepreted both in light of the internal logic of the project, and as the mapping
of a condition of the field. On one hand, it suggests that the balance of the
scheme had to be tipped so that different densities and boundary conditions
would be generated, which would then provide better orientation and diverse
social atmospheres; on the other, the new material identity of the community
could not ignore the continuity of the pre-existing urban and social fabric, i.e.,
the fact that it had external functional links. In sum, the massing strategy of
Byker conveys the notion that both continuity and local disjunction are positive
conditions of the existing community that needed to be captured, and perhaps
exacerbated, by the new configuration. This initial conclusion is useful in
countering the analyses of critics such Robin Abrams, for whom Byker’s reliance
on an enclosed, utopian community model, is the very reason why it became
a straitjacket to the foreseeable changes that the community would undergo
in the years the followed the completion of the project.40 In Abrams’ view, the
design of Byker’s was flawed because it prevented the existence of intermediate
conditions that could have blurred the perception of an inside and outside of the
community, thus allowing its integration into the surrounding urban and social
fabric. Abrams’ use of the ecologic metaphor is useful, yet his case falls apart.
His claim that the project failed due to its lack of ecotones (zones of transition
between different ecosystems) betrays an insufficient understanding of the
formal organization of the estate, which has intermingled with its surroundings
on the south border quite succesfully. More deeply, however, it returns to a
behaviorist type of criticism, whereby the fixed form of the project appears to
have precluded the possibility of adapation that was necessary, as the original
community evolved into new and unsuspected forms. Abrams’ examination of
Byker exemplifies a type of criticism that, while bringing together the social
and the formal, remains almost purely empirical. Its reduction of the field of

39.  Hadrian’s wall, the 117 kilometer long defensive structure that used to define the northern border
of the Roman Empire in AD 122, used to run parallel to Shields Road, which is only a hundred
meters north of the site of Byker. A segment of the old wall is still visible today and has been
preserved at the center of a small area called Hadrian Square.

40.  Robin Abrams, op. cit.: 129-130.

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relevance of the project to a narrow “here and now” had been dismissed already
in the late 1960’s by Aldo Rossi’s repositioning of architecture within the much
longer temporality of the urban artifact. But it is clear that Rossi’s system of
typological classification is also insufficient to explain the forms of complexity
taking place in Byker; thus a further elaboration of the notion of isomorphism,
reaching into the celular and even sub-celular levels of the project, should be
undertaken.

4.5 Post-fordist Differentiations

If the initial approach to the design of Byker has focused on the scale of
masterplanning, it is equally important to address its small scale logic in order
to unravel its various levels of formal heterogeneity. But before turning to that
problem, the concept of post-fordism should be introduced as a framework of
the evaluation. What is its relevance and operativity, why bring it up instead
of a more usual concept like postmodernism, as has been proposed by Charles
Jencks, to characterize Byker’s historical context? Plenty of attention has been
given to the influence of the new figurative culture of vernacular and historicist
affiliations that emerged in the early 1970’s, whereas little has been said about
the influence on architectural form of the economic, scientific, and productive
logic that underpinned the transition taking place since the late 1960’s.
Postmodernism has been characterized by authors such as Gianni Vattimo and
Jean-François Lyotard as a cultural, aesthetic and philosophic critique of the
project of modernity, while Marxist writers such as Fredric Jameson and David
Harvey have placed emphasis on its direct relationship with the conceptual
and phenomenal consequences of the late capitalist economy. Post-fordism,
on the other hand, has been the province of reflection for economists, political
scientists and marketing pundits, who have focused on changes in the sphere
of industrial production and the socio-political relations thereby involved.
While it is clear that both terms point a set of closely related historical events,
their consequences for analysis are distinct and should not be overlooked.
The reasons behind the passage from the fordist period (ca. 1910-1960) to the
post-fordist stage vary, but several authors agree that capitalism had reached
a structural crisis point between the late 1960’s and the early 1970’s.41 The
economic, political and societal reforms that were introduced to reinvigorate
western economies thereafter were motivated by the perception that American-
style corporate development, rigidly commanded by the triad of big labor, big
government, and big capital, had grown unable to handle the complexities of
increasingly competitive, fragmented, and unpredictable markets. Thus, the
response had to come 1) by way of flexibilization of production and accumulation
(labor reforms, elimination of the gold exchange standard, deregulation of
financial markets and international trade, etc.), and 2) through the development
of production techniques that would allow a greater sensitivity and response
capacity vis-à-vis rapidly diversifying consumer preferences and shifting
market conditions (small batch, just-in-time production, mass-customization,
etc.). In terms of its productive logics, characteristic of post-fordism was its

41.  See for example: David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity. An Inquiry into the Origins of
Cultural Change (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989). Ch. 9. From Fordism to Flexible Accumulation, 141-172.
Other authors have interpreted this change in terms of a passage from organized to disorganized
capitalism. See: Scott Lash and John Urry, The End of Organized Capitalism (Cambridge: Polity
Press, 1987). For an overview see: Ash Amin, “Post-Fordism: Models, Fantasies and Phantoms of
Transition”, in Ash Amin (ed.), Post-Fordism. A Reader (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), 1-39.

195
 ability to apropriate demands that had originated within a field that had sought
to resist the orthodox, mechanistic modes of modernist repetition. Indeed, this
constitutes one of the central theses put forward by Italian philosopher Paolo
Virno, according to whom post-fordism is the set of innovations introduced by
capitalism into the realm of industrial production, in order to respond to the
crisis of the fordist system and the ensuing political struggles of the 1960’s and
1970’s. These struggles, though seen as politically radical, were in fact contrary
to the spirit that had animated previous labor revolts.42 But our interest lies
primarily in Virno’s thesis concerning the re-emergence of the multitude as the
political subject that is proper to this stage of capitalist development. Following
Virno, the shift from fordism to post-fordism entails not only a new dynamic
of labor organization, capital accumulation, and material production, but,
fundamentally, the constitution of a new kind of collective political subject, the
emergence of which came to challenge the validity of the sociological concepts
of the immediate postwar period. Furthermore, the basis of this subject
differs radically from the modern notion of the people, which had mobilized
state-led modernization since the XVIIIth century. Whereas the people had
consolidated as the result of a centripetal movement of atomized individuals
converging towards their unity, Virno explains, the multitude emerges from a
centrifugal movement based on a pre-existing unity given by shared liguistic-
cognitive faculties. The multitude, adds Virno, seeks not to construct “a new
State or a new monopoly of political decision making; rather, it has to do with
defending plural experiences, forms of non-representative democracy, of non-
governmental usages and customs”43, of valorizing “all that which renders
the life of an individual unique”.44 On the basis on this characterization, the
contention that subtends this study of Byker -but also that of other projects of the
postwar period with which it shared a concern for redefining the architectural
subject, from the Unité d’ Habitation to Robin Hood Gardens and Toulouse-le-
mirail- is that its design cannot be explained or evaluated empirically; rather,
analysis must rely on the recognition of the project’s conceptual subject as the
matrix of the isomorphisms through which the conditions of possibility for its
identification to architecture were set. If such isomorphic connection could
be said to exist between the individual-to-collective relationship in the social
field, and the part-to-whole relationship within architecture, then Virno’s
post-fordist multitude could be invoked as the aggregation of individual users
that, consciously or not, Byker strove to define in material terms. For, even
if the notion of community had dominated 1950’s and 1960’s architectural
discourse as the primary figure with which the collective could be associated,
Byker’s move toward complexification, fragmentation, and dispersal seems to
suggest an incipient inversion in the notion of unity that had been latent in

42.  “I believe that the social struggles of the 1960’s and 1970’s expressed non-socialist demands,
indeed anti-socialist demands: radical criticism of labor; an accentuated taste for differences, or
if you prefer, a refining of the “principle of individuation”; no longer the desire to take possession
of the state, but the aptitude (at times violently, certainly) for defending oneself from the state, for
dissolving the bondage to the state as such. It is not difficult to recognize communist inspiration
and orientation in the failed revolution of the 1960’s and 1970’s. For this reason, post-Fordism,
which constitutes a response to that revolution has given life to a sort of paradoxical “communism of
capital”. Paolo Virno, A Grammar for the Multitude (New York: Semiotext(e), 2004): 109.

43.  Op. Cit, 42.

44.   Op. Cit, 111.

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De Carlo Hertzberger Safdie

De Carlo
De Carlo Hertzberger Erskine
Safdie
Renaudie

Van Eyck Andrault y Parat Kurokawa

De Carlo Hertzberger Safdie Erskine
Renaudie

Modes of aggregation.
Van Eyck Andrault y Parat Fragmentary
Kurokawa vs. self-similar.
Erskine
Renaudie
the sociological and architectural imagination of the previous years. In doing
this, Byker resonates with Virno’s understanding of the multitude as the form
of collectivity for which unity is a premise rather than a promise (as was the
case of the people, who arise as the congregation of a set of individuals into
a One-state), that is to say, a whole that is a produced through a principle of
individuation rather than a process of subjugation.45

In 1982 Ralph Erskine was invited to deliver the Third Thomas Cubitt Lecture
at the Royal Society of the Arts in London. Kurokawa
Andrault y Parat
In the lecture he articulated his
theoretical views on architecture from the vantage of a seasoned practitioner,
reflecting on his lifelong ideological commitments, offering an unusually detailed
commentary on the contemporary situation of the discipline, and discussing
the work of several of his postmodern colleagues –from Robert Venturi to
Ricardo Bofill.46 Departing from his early interest in Swedish modernism, he

45.  Op. Cit, 76. The idea of increasing individuation as the natural trend of a growing collective
can be traced back to sociology of Georg Simmel. See: “Group Expansion and the Development of
Inviduality”, in Georg Simmel, On Individuality and Social Forms. Edited by Donald N. Levine
(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1971). T he essay was first published in 1908.

46.   See: Ralph Erskine, Democratic Architecture. The Universal and Useful Art. Projects and
Reflections. Speech delivered on occasion of the Third Thomas Cubitt Lecture at the Royal Society
of the Arts, Wednesday 31st of March, 1982, in Journal of the Royal Society of the Arts, September
1982. Short version published in Denys Lasdun (ed.), Architecture in an Age of Skepticism (1983):
72-93. This is one of the very few theoretical texts ever published by Erskine.

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Problema teórico de la arquitectura de posguerra: ¿Cómo conceptualizar las diferencias formales entre un edificio y otro, cuando programa y contexto son similares?   

Relación entre la masa edificada y el sitio

Urban space enclosure. develops ideas about the role of the architect, presents some of his lasting
Semi-open, directional (Byker)
Máxima diferenciación interior‐exterior designAmbiguedad entre interior‐exterior
principles, and declares himself to beSutil diferenciación interior‐exterior
a “latter-day functionalist” who
Semi-open, ambiguous (Park Hill)
has upheld “architecture as the art of communities”, as defined by American
Axial (Robin Hood Gardens)
brothers Paul and Percival Goodman.47 This declaration confirms Erskine’s
alignment with the core values of Team 10 and its commitment to the notion of
community as the primary representation of the collective; yet, by the 1970’s,
the object of that representation had changed beyond recongnition. As attested
by Byker, the molar mechanisms of formal differentiation that had prevailed in
the canonical housing projects of the early postwar period were no longer able to
create an adequate expression of such object. Erskine’s formal and social project
openly decried the homogenizing effect that fordist production had caused on
the city,48 while also rejecting the postmodern agenda. Virno’s multitude might
then be fitting to frame Erskine’s understanding of the collective subject of
architecture in the 1970’s, despite the fact that he still relied on the familiar
discourse of community architecture.

If post-fordism may serve to explain the modes of production of heterogeneity

that were inchoate in the work of Team 10, and particularly so in Erskine’s
proposal for Byker, it is also necessary, by way of a conclusion to this section,
to recall the prevalent tendencies that emerged in postwar housing architecture
in relation to the production of formal diversity, so that Erskine’s contribution
may be thrown into sharper relief.

The first trajectory is exemplified by Le Corbusier’s Unité d’ Habitation, and

its progeny; it is defined by a tension toward the formally autonomous object,
continuing in certain ways the purist tradition of the interwar period. Yet, even
an autonomous object such as the Unité displays a novel interest in generating a
complex internal articulation, a developed sense of precision in the definition of
its collective body of occupants, and a renewed architectural expression meant to
relate the internal community with the surrounding city. The second trajectory
emerges in the early years of the decade of 1950, and leans toward system-like
(Golden Lane) and field-like configurations; this line of work seeks to establish
radical new terms for the relationship between architecture and the city. It does
so by frequently attempting to blur the identity and autonomy of the object,

47.  See: Paul and Percival Goodman, Communitas: Ways of Livelihood and Means of Life (New
York: Vintage Books, 1947).

48.  “Even in Sweden, with much smaller income differentials, says Erskine, you find the working
class congregating together in flats that are cheaper, and the middle class in houses. Part of the
reason for this is what he calls `the Henry Ford´method in which Swedish industry equipped itself
to produce a single dwelling type such as flats, and then located them all in one place because `all
the cranes were there´. Now, says Erskine, Swedish industry has tooled up to produce one-family
houses; this not only leads to visual monotony but also to the same sort of social segregation”. See:
“Erskine talks to the AJ”, The Architects’ Journal (3/3/1976): 419.

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 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

dissolving both its boundaries and internal hierarchies, by extending systems

of urban circulation into the buildings, and by giving an increasingly clear
priority to the expression of the part over that of the whole. It is exemplified by
a broad spectrum of work encompassing the early projects of Alison and Peter
Smithson, by the open type of organization embraced by Dutch architects Aldo
Van Eyck and Herman Hertzberger, by their French counterparts Candilis, Josic
and Woods, by some of the projects of Jean Renaudie, or Andrault and Parat
in France, and later, by the work of Moshe Safdie in Canada, Yona Friedman in
France, Ricardo Bofill in Spain, and the Metabolists in Japan. Finally, Erskine’s
project for Byker brings up a third line, characterized by its distinctive way of
setting up internal relations and connections to the city. Byker’s heterogeneity
is based on a double play that rejects both the idea of the part as a dominant
figure, but also –although to a lesser degree- that of the totality and autonomy
of the object. Instead, it defines a number of typological fragments in order
to break down the overall mass into pieces of singular identity, and then
applies rules of composition, transition, and deformation, in order to soften
the formal and scalar conflicts that arise among the separate elements. Each
of these elements is an individual fragment (formally, by name, typology, and
address) which is treated in such a way as to produce subtle continuities with
its neighboring structures and spaces. Likewise, the relationship of the project
to the city incurs in a strategy of ambiguity, establishing a strong presence
toward the north, but mingling with the existing fabric toward the south.
Rather than extending the streets of the city into the core of the estate or in
the manner of “streets in the air”, a hierachical position is granted to the public
circulation taking place on the natural plane, acknowledging the inevitable
discontinuity produced by architecture in the experience of the city. Overall,
Byker denies a clear distinction between the private, repetitive elements, and
the singular ones, and puts decidedly more emphasis on the design of its
outdoor spaces than in its interiors. The intricacies of its elevations, profiles,
courtyards, pedestrian alleyways and common “greens”, strand in contrast with

Dunn Terrace mother cell

The basic module and its degrees of
freedom.

the straightforwardness of its plans. Indeed, the language of the floor plans

199

Dunn Terrace.
Catalogue of structural units based on
the differentiation of the mother cell.
200
of the main structures at Byker lacks interior complexity and multi-layering
strategies, eschewing the transversalities, displacements, thicknesses, depths,
and structural subtleties present in most Brutalist schemes.
4.6 Units of measurement
Sub-human
Whereas Le Corbusier’s Unité d’ Habitation in Marseille has ewstablished a
pattern for both design and analysis based on a dialectic of clear distinctions
between singular structures and repetitive infill components, to follow such
template for the study of Byker would be a fruitless effort. For Byker’s mode
of integration is characterized by the existence of multiple scales of identity
and association, in a gradient that covers the space between the smallest
individual element and the overall collective created by the project. The study
that follows rests on the hypothesis that Byker can be better understood as
a series of discrete aggregations of materials and people of increasing size
and complexity. It also states that a number of design operations are at work,
which complicate the reading of those aggregations as discrete moments. A
significant effort was made in Byker to create seamless transitions between
scales and to generate visually undecidable spatialiaties -an effort that betrays
the project’s interest and reliance on developments in visual perception such
as those being investigated by Gyorgy Kepes and Rudolf Arnheim.
With these caveats in mind: what are various modules and units of measure
 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

Perimeter block under construction (ca.

1973)

used in Byker, and what do they say about its purported commitment to
humanism, community values and user involvement? If the notion of unit
of measure is taken broadly, the choice of brick as the main cladding mate-
rial for all the large building blocks could be regarded as the beginning of a
chain of determinations that start in the realm of the sub-human and ends
at the scale of the trans-human. On the small scale, brick defines constraints
that bear on issues of construction and geometric rigor; on the large scale it
resurfaces to generate seemingly endless planes, out-of-scale graphics, and
texts that appear to have been drawn by giants’ hands. The brick used in Byker
was manufactured by special order for the project in six different colors and
measures 29cmx9cmx7cm (length x height x depth). Considering a mortar
joint of which only 1 cm is visible, its size is the basis of a rational unit for
the façades of 30cmx10cm; in fact, the entire project is designed using 10cm
as the smallest unit of measurement.49 But the constraints imposed by the
choice of brick cladding have further implications, for, in order to maintain
superficial continuity while keeping the convex and concave segments of the
perimeter block to multiples of 10cm, a precise system of geometric variation
had to be created. Given that the typological configuration of the perimeter
block remains constant at each level regardless of changes in geometry,
the primary condition of the structural module is that it should be able to
maintain a constant surface area in all of its instances -straight, concave, and
convex- in order to satisfy similar requirements for all the apartments. This
would be a simple problem to solve if it were not because the façade-lines
can only vary their length at 10 cm intervals. Furthermore, the perimeter
block varies in depth, decreasing from 6.80 m on its lower two levels to
5.80 m on levels three and higher, in order to adjust to the needs of its two
most prevalent dwelling types. In all, this dimensional puzzle would have

49. Byker was designed and built exactly at the time when Britain was changing its system of
measures from Imperial to Metric. This process was known as metrication and took place between
1965 and 1975. Byker was designed entirely using the metric system. Source: Interview with Roger
Tilloston, Ferbruary 3rd, 2012.

201
 been irresolvable had it not been thanks to the help of a secondary cladding
system made of white Eternit boards. Even though this cladding system’s
primary function is to generate a lighter atmosphere for the south façade of
the perimeter block, in consonance with its more intimate scale, it is also an
effective solution to the overload of dimensional constraints brought about by
the use of brick, on two counts: 1) it is made of large sheets that can be easily
cut to arbitrary sizes, and 2) it does a good job of “hiding” its non-standard
Dunn Terrace.
horizontal length, due to the fact that it has very few joints, which would be
Perimeter block, façade detail. Photo by
the author. the only means to visually “measure” the boards. With these constraints and
degrees of variability in place, the geometric system used in the project can
be diagrammed as a bifurcated catalogue of basic units, one of its branches
generating straight segments of varying depths for the link and point blocks,
and the other being responsible for generating the modules that make up
the curved segments of the perimeter block. The catalog also reveals that the
varying depth of the structural module is the primary vector of transforma-
tion that accounts for the differentiation of building types.

If dimensional constraints at the smallest scales of the project speak to the

conditions imposed by standards of industrial coordination, geometric pre-
cision, financial viability, and evolving institutional setups, the next level
up –concerning structural design- is informed as much by financial restric-
tions that led to a reduction of spans and the elimination of free-standing
columns, as by the social research that had been conducted in the postwar
years giving rise to planning advice documents such as the Parker Morris
Report (1961).50 Yet, Byker did not follow the advice of Parker Morris in
full. Both floor space standards and storage capacity in the dwellings were
important clues in determining the dimensions of the structural modules,
and they adhered, on the whole, to the advice of the Report. But the report’s
advice concerning flexibillity in dwelling layout could not be accomodated
due to a choice of construction technology that made it impossible to separate
structural elements and spatial partitions. Both in the point and perimeter
blocks, the structure of which is built with concrete cross-walls every 3.40
m or 3.60 m (decreasing to 3.00 m in the trapezoidal modules), and in the
link blocks, which are held up by blockcrete cavity walls spanning up to
3.80 m, the system allows for very little room for adaptation to unforeseen
user needs.51 This could be seen as a contradiction of the principles of user
participation. Yet, as we have seen, Byker is less about inviting actual ten-
ant participation in its processes of formation, than about representing the

50.     Structural spans range from 3.00 m to 3.80 m in the building’s main direction, and between
5.80 m and 7.60 m in the transversal direction. On average, the former are wider than what could
have been if dictated by the width of a parking space, as was the case later in schemes such as Robin
Hood Gardens. In all cases, the structural unit is 2.60 m high.

51.     The one place where the project did foresee the possibility of change and adaptation is in
some of the low-rise typologies, where certain maisonettes can be converted into separate flats
with individual entries, and viceversa. In many other respects, the influence of Parker Morris was
signficant, namely, the adoption of centralized heating, the allocation of individual parking spaces
(1.25 per dwelling), and the planning of ample storage space.

202
 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

Dunn Terrace. Building typologies.

203
Dunn Terrace.
Cirulation systems. Drawing by author.

possibility that those processes might happen, or might have happened in

some imaginary past. Structural design decisions in Byker follow a similar
logic in that they are governed by the notion that actual, long-term formal
stability is a necessary and constitutive condition for an architecture that
seeks to promote communal interests and identities.

Cellular and Interpersonal

The next unit of architectural organization –made up of two to five struc-
tural bays- concerns the dwelling itself as a functional organism. While in
most coeval housing projects the relation between functional, typological
and constructional logics can be discerned with relative simplicity, Byker
presents not only three different structural systems -poured in situ concrete
for high-rise structures, load-bearing cavity wall and precast concrete slabs
for mid-rise structures, and timber-frame for low-rise-, but also a complex
relationship between individual dwelling unit and multi-dwelling structure.
The prevailing criterion for organizing dwelling types is that units for larger
families (4 to 6 people) are designed as semi-detached or terraced houses
with larger expansions directly in contact with the ground, or as maisonettes
at street level, while smaller units are used to build up higher segments of
the enclosing Perimeter Block. In Dunn Terrace alone –which holds 264
dwellings for 828 people, representing about 13% of Byker- there are units
sizes of 1 to 6 persons, but these are configured into 19 different dwelling
types encompassing houses (73 units), flats (83 units), and maisonettes (108
units).52 This figure increases if subtypes are considered, for example, on the
basis of their various access, orientation, and expansion conditions. The dif-
ferences among said types can not be reduced to a logic of permutations and
recombinations of smaller elements; instead, an order of urban fragments
is imposed from the top, driving typological differentation from an outside
logic to which the dwellings have to adapt. Diammetrically opposed to the
bottom-up, difference-generating system that Le Corbusier had set-up in
his Unité, this approach sacrifices much of the possibility of innovation at

52. Because of the presence of a singular “point block”, the proportional breakdown of unit types in
Dunn Terrace does not represent the average for the entire estate. Whereas for the development as
a whole the mid-rise and high-rise typologies amount to only 20% of the total, in DunnTerrace this
proportion is almost inverted, with just 27% of the units being low-rise and the remaining 73% being
mid- or high-rise.

204
Sociotectónicas
paradigmas de vivienda colectiva 1950‐1980

Julián Varas FADEU / UC 2013

Problema teórico de la arquitectura de posguerra: ¿Cómo conceptualizar las diferencias formales entre un edificio y otro, cuando programa y contexto son similares?   

DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

Relación entre la masa edificada y el vacio circulatorio

Comparison of three deck-access housing

buildings in England. From left to right:
Byker, Park Hill, Robin Hood Gardens.

the scale of the individual dwelling. Hence, if the dwellings are comfortably
sized, reaching 20 m2 per person, or even more in some cases, unsually well
lit and ventilated (all units have cross ventilation, and there are almost no
individual rooms in them without direct outside ventilation and illumination,
including bathrooms and storage spaces), well heated and insulated, and
have ample expansions and storage space, they lack the topological daring
that many projects of comparable scale and ambition exhibited in its time,
their single exceptional feature being perhaps the lack of doors separating
the living spaces fomr the circulation areas of within the unit.53 On the other
hand, their relation to the exterior is fluid but carefully mediated on all but
northern oriented facades. This becomes most evident in the large windows
that open from the dinning spaces onto the access decks that feed them. Despite
being probably the most intimate link that can be found amidst deck-access
housing, this relation has proven successful in that those appartments have
consistently ranked among the best kept in the estate.

Molecular: Contaiment and transversality.

It is at the level of the definition of sub-communal or micro-communal units
where the ambitions of Byker start to become most evident, unique, and suc-
cessful. The architectural theory of Team 10 had been built on the premise
that traditional open spaces, such as streets and squares constituted the basic
devices of socialization required by an urban community. In the design of
postwar social housing this notion found one of its most emphatic translations
in the implementation of a series of wide access-decks linked either directly

Dunn Terrace. Unfolded elevation of Tom Collins House and East Link Block.

with the urban ground, or through various means of vertical circulation. 54

53. This feature that was not fully appreciated by the early tenants. See: Alison Ravetz (1976): 738.

54. Most studies on deck-access housing trace its origin to the Justus van Effenstraat complex in
Spangen Quarter, Rotterdam, designed by Michiel Brinkman between 1918 and 1921; there are also Dunn Terrace.
references to Adolf Loos’s Vienese housing block of 1923, and earlier projects by Antonio Sant ‘ Elia, Comparison of building types.
New City and Milan 2000 A.D (1908-1914). For an overview see: Christopher W. Bacon, Streets in

205
 One of Byker’s most significant contributions is to have departed from this
orthodoxy. Even if several dwellings in it are dependent on deck access, the
language and gimmicks of streets-in-the-sky are absent as a trope. Instead,
Byker entrusts its primary socializing responsibilities to circulation at the
ground level. The decision to organize most of the housing directly on the
sloping terrain allowed it to create intricate circulation patterns, approach-
ing at times the notion of a mat-building, yet different from it in the size of
its alleys and courtyards, in the individuality of its components, and in the
absence of visually homogenizing infrastructural grids. This spreading-out
effect not only augments the possibilities for movement, but creates also
multiple situations where spaces are activated not just by the circulation of
people, but by the overlapping of lines of visual control. As a result, human
presence on the outdoor spaces is multiplied, demarcating boundaries, in-
termediate zones, and emerging forms of interaction that would not occur
based only on a logic of movement.

To understand the complex effects that characterize the intermediate scale

in Byker, therefore, it is necessary to look at three interacting components:
1) the actual associations and adjacencies created by self-contained physical
structures, 2) the virtual connections made possible by the various compo-
nents of the circulation system and its extensions, such as decks, bridges,
hallways, streets, parking lots, alleys, courtyards and greens, and 3) the
virtual connections made possible through the overlapping of visual cones
and panoramas. (see diagrams) Working together in myriad dynamic combi-
nations, those three types of association generate the intersection of various
social circles in an effort that blurs the boundaries between physically and
socially sanctioned collectives while promoting the emergence of unfore-
seen relations. This exposes a premise that Byker investigates with rarely
seen poignancy, thoroughness and depth: architecture should be formally
configured in such way as to foster the building up of redundancy in the
internal connections of the collective.

Following this three-fold scheme, forms of association at the intermediate

scale begin with those generated by the individual structures and clusters that
make up the ensemble. Each of these structures is distinct not just formally
and typologically, but also toponymically. Dunn Terrace, the westernmost
area of Byker, is composed of five interrelated building blocks and two low rise
areas of 37 and 33 houses each, arranged in clusters and terraces around an
eastern and a western courtyard (see Table no. 1). Containing 53 apartments
for 122 ederly people as well as warden facilities and a large communal space
on the ground level is Tom Collins House, a triangularly shaped block that
cascades down from twelve to three floors. This building is unique not only
because of its shape and height but also because of its special target popula-
tion. Formally, it works as a tail-end to the perimeter block, from which it

the Sky. The Rise and Fall of a Modernist Architectural Urban Utopia. PhD. Dissertation, University
of Sheffield, Department of Town and Regional Planning (1982).

206
 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

“grows” by blending its shape into it, and as an iconic landmark that identifies
the development from afar.55 Its internal dynamic is also uncommon in that it
must rely primarily on the use of elevators for functional connectivity; in that
sense it departs from the prevailing logic of Byker, resembling the typology of
a hotel-tower. Northumberland Terrace and Dunn Terrace are the names of
the two consecutive segments of the perimeter block. With five floors, three
elevator shafts, and a total unfolded length of 260 meters, the perimeter
block provides visual and formal continuity between Dunn Terrace and the
rest of the Byker estate, which is physically separated from it by the ditch of
an old railway line. While from the north the perimeter block can be seen in
its entirety, its perception from the south is interrupted be the middle link
block, which “docks” into it half way through its development, connecting
parasitically through a bridge to one of its vertical cores. Therefore, while
both physically and functionally the perimeter block is a well defined entity,
its perception as such becomes more ambiguous when seen from the south or
when considered in relationship to the neighborly relationships that it sets
up. This duality is emphasized by the fact that each segment carries its own Dunn Terrace.
Comparison of link blocks.
name. In total, the perimeter block houses 217 persons in 85 dwellings, out of
which 23 units are large enough to house families with children. Most of the
remaining 62 units are two person maisonettes fed by a narrow access-deck.
The mid-rise/mid-scale typology is represented by the link blocks, three of
which were projected in Dunn Terrace: Salisbury House, Graham House,
and Wolsley House -Byker as a whole has nine such structures. Link blocks
are also linear in configuration, but are stepped north-south, adding both
ruggedness to the skyline, and a directionality that deviates from that of its
individual units, which are oriented east-west. Moreover, their floor plans
are deeper (7.60 m), allowing them to accommodate larger units for fami-
lies in double-aspect flats and maisonettes. Toward the west, 90 meter long
Salisbury House is composed of 27 dwellings, 20 of which are for families
with children, for 92 people in total; it is the largest of the three link blocks.
Separating the low-rise areas in two, Graham House repeats the formal and
associational patterns of Salisbury House, totaling 61 persons, but is shorter
and has only 16 units, of which 13 are for families with children. As in the
latter, double frontage for views and ground floor access gives Graham House
an ambiguous status, activating low rise areas both east and west of it. Gra-
ham House partakes in a mode of formal articulation that is common to most
link blocks in Byker. By contrast to the perimeter block’s vaguely neoplastic
resonances –for instance in its decomposition of the building volume into
planes of different materials-, link blocks convey a distinct notion of whole-

55.  Vernon Gracie, project architect for Tom Collins House, underscored that the strategy of
smoothing hard boundaries by means of design played out here also at the programmatic level:
“the ‘blurring of the edges’ between the sheltered housing and the rest of the scheme was taken a
step further where three-person flats were introduced on the lowest three floors. These can be used
by disabled tenants, either as an extension of the sheltered housing scheme, or as normal flats”,
thus creating greater continuity with the adjacent East Link Block. See: Vernon Gracie, “Architect’s West Link block. Elevation.
Account”, The Architects’ Journal (May 1979): 1016.

207
 ness and monolithism by using a continuous brick envelope. Rythmicity and
punctuation are present here too, but not through the direct expression of
the vertical circulation cores; rather these are indexed in the profile of the
building as turrets of stacked maisonettes which jut up twice or thrice along
the lengh of the block. Overall, the formal expression of these buildings seems
to point to the notion that the range between 50 and 90 persons would be an
adequate size for a communal structure to be translated into a volume that
can be individualized as such. The parasitic apropriation of the perimeter
block elevators through bridges between them and the link blocks function-
ally unites the whole complex, implying a critique to the idea that formal
autonomy could work as simple translation of socially cohesive structures.
The fuzziness and overlapping of the boundaries of systems reappears yet
again as if to state that any single formal gesture is insufficient by itself to
generate the required redundancy of interconnection. Similar considerations
extend to the design of the low-rise clusters: Low Fold (west) and Clive
Place (east). Consistently oriented toward the south, these are composed of
two-story and split-level houses for families of four, five and six members.
Although these clusters are somewhat more populous than the mid-rise link
blocks, with 147 and 160 persons respectively, their organization in various
separate terraces makes possible smaller scale associations and forms of
vicinity. Their proximity to the lower floors of the nearby blocks constructs
transversal and cross-typology relations that are actualized by visual relations
and by their joint usage of parking areas and shared pedestrian pathways
needed to reach access halls and common facilities

Molar scale
The largest unit of measurement that can be identified in Byker as bearing
signification with regards to organization of the collective is the design of
the envelopes. Because of the breakdown of the communal organization into
smaller buildings and pockets of contained public spaces, even the perimeter
block, with its iconic status and overall extension of more than 1.4 km., can
not provide a cohesive image for the development as a whole. Countering the
fragmentation strategies deployed at intermediate scales, it is through the
systematic coding of the outer surfaces of the various buildings that the idea
of formal unity and continuity is recuperated at the scale of the estate. This
notion had been abandonded in the pursuit of local diversity and surprise, but
is now brought back to the fore through the use of standardized constructional
and ornamental solutions.

The coding of the surfaces is achieved by graphic, chromatic, textural, and

tectonic means. Yet, all these operations rely on abandoning the interest in
structure and its expression. If seen against the background of the previously
dominant brutalist sensibility, this new conception of the envelope as an au-
tonomous membrane is yet another signpost of Byker’s status as a post-fordist/
post-modern object. And the term ‘envelope’ is used here instead of ‘façade’
after due consideration, for Erskine deliberately eschewed the planar, frontal

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configurations that had characterized both the purist architecture of the interwar
period, as well as the historicist approaches that emerged in the 1970’s. On the
contrary, Byker places itself in the tradition that seeks an organic continuity
between the various surfaces that define the phyisical boundaries of a build-
ing. The project-wide strategy devised to deal with this envelope manages the
interplay of a reduced number of variables, generating a continuously changing
atmosphere that softens any scalar and formal discordances.
The material composition of the envelope is the first of those variables. In
Byker, no concrete, glass, or steel are given protagonism; rather, archaic
and vernacular materials are chosen. As mentioned above, brick and Eternit
boards are the prevailing choices for the vertical surfaces. Moreover, wood
siding is utilized on the low-rise terraces and houses, colored wooden slats
form the balconies and fences, and light-blue aluminum sheeting is used for
the roofs. These materials are generally brought together following a tectonic
grammar that places the heavier brick surfaces directly in touch with the
ground, becoming lighter as the height of their placement increases.

The use of brick in Byker has been addressed earlier, emphasizing its role
as a measuring module. Standing in opposition to concrete’s lack of di-
mensional and formal constraints -as in Le Corbusier’s Unité- the choice of
brick involves also a shift from proportion -i.e.: relationality- to metrics, as
a system of dimensional control. But brick is exploited in Byker for formal
effects that give global coherence to the project, and some of these know very
few precedents in modern architecture. From the broad field of formal and
constructive investigations undertaken in postwar England, Byker avoided
most of the canonical solutions while staging its own critique of modernist
abstraction. Since the late 19th century introduction of steel and concrete
skeletons in buildings, the double function of brick as structure and infill, and
the possibility of their separation, had become apparent.56 Although during the
interwar period many modern architects rejected brick construction -deeming
it unfit to express the abstraction and precision of the industrial world, and
hence hiding it under a coat of plaster57- the 1950’s saw a renewed interest
and acceptance of their use.58 In Byker, however, the decision to build the

56.  See: Jonathan Ochsonhorn, “Brick in the twentieth century”, in Stephen Sennott, Encyclopedia
of Twentieth Century Architecture (New York: Taylor and Francis, 2004).

57.     But there are significant exceptions to this, such a Mies van der Rohe’s Lange and Esters Houses
(1927), his Monument to Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht (1926) and Bruno Taut’s Schillerpark
Siedlung in Berlin (1924-1930), to name only a few.

58. Peter Smithson’s position regarding brick was ambiguous: “We didn’t reject elegance per se but
we were stuck, and are still stuck in many ways, with the problem of the brick. I am obsessionally
against the brick, you know, we think brick (is) the antithesis of machine building and yet for
practical reasons we never have built in anything else. It is a tragedy. When I was 19 I said I would
never design or build anything in brick in all my life, and yet one is face to face in England in this
northern climate and in the middle belt of Europe with the fact that brick does the job. You cannot
argue with it, and therefore you know there is certain sort of common sense in it. If common sense
tells you that you have got to make some poetic thing with brick, you make it with brick.” See: Alison
Smithson, Peter Smithson, Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry, “Conversation on Brutalism”, Zodiac n. 4
(1959): 73-81. Reprinted in October n. 136 (2011).

209
 perimeter block with a celular concrete structure and to conceal it entirely,
precluded the application of brick as infill panels, as had been used in Park
Hill or Hunstanton, for example. On the other hand, while the link blocks were
built using cavity wall construction -with structural concrete blocks on the
inside- the exterior face was clad with the same standard bricks used in the
perimeter block, thus preempting the canonical solution consisting of thick
monomaterial structural walls, used successfully (albeit with variations) by
Le Corbusier, Colin Saint-John Wilson, the Smithsons and James Stirling.
Neither structural nor infill material, brick was used as cladding throughout
Byker. But, the use of brick cladding does note predetermine a specific type of
formal expression, and Byker confirms this as it oscillates between a reading
that figures the notion of volume against another that suggests the idea of
surface. If at first glance the operation here seems to depart from a concep-
tual use of brick such as the one carried out by James Stirling in Leicester,
it can be seen that the quality of ambiguity reappears in the definition of the
envelopes, as if to insist on the idea that to blur physical boundaries might be
conducive to the integration of the different scales and sub-groups within the
collective. Whereas James Stirling’s Leicester Engineering Building (1959-
1963) was also clad in red brick, its dialectic of oppositions and subversions
between the tectonics of concrete, glass, and brick, 59 are replaced in Byker
by a logic of open planes and figurative surfaces that bend and bifurcate
generating ambivalent readings of the overall mass.

Regarding its material configuration, the simplest and least differentiated

building envelope corresponds to the link blocks. Link blocks not function-

59.  On James Stirling’s use of materials in Leicester in the context of postwar “realism” see: Peter
Eisenman, Ten Canonical Buildings. 1950-2000. (New York: The Monacelli Press, 2009). Chapter
6, Material Inversions: 155-176.

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ing as extensions of the perimeter block are configured as solids with closed
corners, and are wrapped entirely in red brick. In Dunn Terrace, these are the
east and west link blocks. They not only acquire, on their “outer” façades, the
textures and colors that characterize the north side of the perimeter block,
but are also materially continuous with it, both through the prolongation of
their surfaces and by sharing with them their circulatory system. Meanwhile,
in the perimeter block brick is used differently on the south than on the north
elevation. On the south side, it performs the function of a classical rusticated
base that thickens the block and visually articulates it with the ground. On
the north side, it functions as a minimally articulated wrapper running the
full height of the building; it then produces flap-like folds at each end to
generate a “u” shaped container. Moreover, if on the south side the plinth
reveals its actual fragility by exposing its thinness, on the north side the en-
velope acquires thickness as it wraps around columns and folds into the side
walls of the passageways that puncture the block. The brick lining of these
through-ways folds out again on the south façade creating points of contact
and continuity between the outer and inner walls. A similar logic extends to
Tom Collins House -the point block- where the inward-looking façade is clad
primarily with white Eternit boards, using brick only to thicken the block at
its base, while the outward-looking façade continues the scenographic brick
patterns of the perimeter block folding at the end to give continuity to the
end-wall. Finally, low rise areas adopt their own tectonic logic combining
brick on the front and back elevations and differently colored wood-siding and
softwood panels at the side and end walls. The number of different material
combinations throughout the various low rise areas in Byker is simply too
elevated to undertake a detailed analysis in the context of the present study.

The examination of the building envelopes at Byker would be incomplete

-and its effects remain only partially explained- without considering the is-

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 sues of fenestration, graphics, and the system of clip-on features that provide
ruggedness and relief to what would otherwise be perceived as plain masses.
In line with decisions on geometry and materials, the logic that governs the
organization of fenestration is geared toward producing singularity and
identification at the level of the individual door and window elements. Two
operations take place simultaneously: first, on the perimeter and link blocks
a one-to-one correspondence is set up between room-types and window sizes,
allowing the possibility that both the use of each room, and the greater unit
configured by the dwelling may be “read” by simply looking at the building
from outside; second, a modernist system of horizontal banding is intro-
duced in the link blocks and low rise structures. Their combination results
in a collage of heterogeneous systems, one privileging readability and form/
function coherence, the other giving preference to formal synthesis and to
an unobstructed relationship between inside and outside.

Coloring system for clip-on elements in Dunn Terrace:

Public Private

Railings Studs Railings Studs Eaves

PeB (NorthU) blue green blue green blue

PeB (Dunn) green blue green blue blue

WLB brown red green blue red

MLB green brown blue green green

ELB red brown red brown

PoB brown red brown

To add a degree of texture and depth, a number of functional elements were

left outside of the building envelope. Whereas the prevailing tendency in the
postwar housing architecture of Team 10 was to increase the depth of the
built mass in order to include within its boundaries the uses and expansions
typically located in its periphery, the volumes at Byker were made as lean
and tight as possible. This forced every non-essential building compoment,
i.e.: balconies, access decks, thresholds, eaves, fences, planters, benches,
etc., to coalesce into a repetitive material system which is in large measure
responsible for the characteristic look of Byker -the image referred to by
Reyner Banham as having been created by “a tidal wade of sheddery and
pergolation”. This system of clip-on elements is predominantly based on
color-coded wood slats and railings, complemented by PVC and aluminium
sheets used as light roofs for private balconies and common access decks
(see table above).

One further layer composes the visible scene in Byker: the graphic system.
It has been mentioned earlier in this chapter that the treatment of graphics
underwent its own development, as the abstract sensibility of the first stage
of the estate evolved into the figurative, openly communicative patterns of

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the later phases -Dunn Terrace being the case in point. But aside from the
fact that utilizing the surfaces of the estate as a giant billboard could be
evocative of Erskine’s awareness of the concerns of an emerging genera-
tion of architects -such as Robert Venturi’s notion of the building as sign,
developed at around the same time-, the texts, symbols, and abstract motifs
inscribed on the brick surfaces of the perimeter and link blocks should also
be understood in terms of their ability to address the project as a totality -a
non comunicative role. At about ten meters high, for example, the letters
of the words “Byker” are traced on the noth façade of the perimeter block
with little consideration of the underlying systems or layers of information.
Except for the pixellated texture and jagged borders that result from the
use of color brick as a base material, a disconnect plays out here between
the layer of graphics and that of the locally sensitive elements, such as
clip-ons, openings, and other functional systems. Graphics -the texts, lines,
and arrows running across the buildings and pointing at the entrances to
the site- become a means to convey an original sense of wholeness and
monumentality frequently absent in social housing, yet one that is devoid
of usually associated notions of seriousness and self-importance. Moreover,
the formal autonomy of the graphic layer invites once again the perception
that the various scales, both social and architectural, that are implicated in
a project of this sort, need to be addressed on their own separate terms even
if they are subsequently subjected to a process of integration that blurs the
sharp definition of their boundaries.

In sum, the designers of Byker were aware that the dry expression of built
masses, even in the context of an exterior space softened by generous planting
and topographic variety, would be unfit as a backdrop for the instigation of
a successful communal life. On the contrary, the urban life they envisaged

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 hinged upon the complex coding, in fact, the overcoding, of the all available
surfaces -especially the building surfaces, but also the public exterior spaces.
This was achieved by means of the combined effect of the four systems
described above, each of them pointing to a different scale of the collective
organization, all of them cummulatively speaking to the idea of an integrated
yet internally differentiated whole. Because each of these four systems has
parameters that are independent of the others, their overlaying allows the
range of formal variation in the project to grow exponentially, creating myriad
opportunities for both individual and collective identification.

But the effects generated by these interacting systems exceed their intended
goals. For their consequence is not just to improve orientation, circulation,
segmentation, group/individual identification, or, indeed, to support pur-
posive action. Rather, the emerging effect escalates into a realm of sensation
that sets the observer in a disinterested and even distracted mood. From the
point of subjective experience, to move through Byker is to undergo a restless
accumulation of images, a caleidoscopic sequencing of chromatic stimuli, and
a recurrent organizational irregularity, set within a fragile but unmistakable
coherence. In a short while, the spectator-user starts to suspect that the
excess of sensory information being received is part of an undeclared plot.
It becomes evident that a scheme has been devised to deceive the user into
a state, first of surprise and awareness, then of relaxation, and ultimately
into obliviousness of mundane concerns. Temporarily disarmed -almost in a
hypnotical state-, the user looses the will to engage in self motivated plans,
and becomes highly susceptible to externally induced action or thought. If s/
he has not been aware of it through the process, then, upon regaining critical
consciousness, the user realizes that s/he has been subject to manipulation
but decides that to accept such puppeteering is warranted -after all, the
presence of the architect/puppetteer on stage reassures the user/used that
the act being played is different from others that have taken place before. 60

4.7 Plot Unveiled

The study of Byker reveals that the structure of intentionality behind it is

more complex than what has previously been shown. Commentators and
scholars preoccupied with Byker have been hypnotized by the novelty of its
ideology, seduced by its anti-heroic expressionism, or disillusioned by the
gap between its intentions and its short-term social results. But after four
decades of existence, its passing into maturity and induction as national
British heritage open up avenues for its reassessment. No longer bound by
the primacy of the social yardstick, Byker can be studied -as Le Corbusier’s
Unité d’ Habitation in Marseille has been tackled- with a focus on the relation
between intentions, methods and long-term subjective effects.

60.  In other words, the fact that the user is not in a position of sufficient power to take part in
decision making processes pertaining to planning, does not make it a passive agent of manipulation,
for many of them still participated, voluntarily, in a social and architectural experiment.

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If the goal at Byker was to induce the continuity of existing social ties and to
foster the emergence of new ones, the operation was entrusted to a twofold
strategy. First, certain elements of the community structure had to be rec-
ognized and mapped into a physical form. These elements were both the real
forms of community organization, and the imaginary forms through which
the community represented itself or to which it aspired (hence, the relevance
of ideas such as boundary, mixture and continuity). 61 The techniques of or-
ganizational and spatial planning played here a central role. However, even
a rationally planned structure, in the broadest sense of the term, was insuf-
ficient in the eyes of the architects. The project needed to be able to engineer
a certain mood among its users, such that it would be possible for them to
accept and live through the radical changes in their physical environment
that new project would inevitably bring about. This implied, first, the need
to develop a complicit relationship between architects and affected users,
and, having established it, the need to create a physical atmosphere, through
surface overcoding and syncopation, that would choke their visual field to
the point of generating a slight disorientation and distraction. In this state
of mind, users would be eased into new possibilities for social interaction.
Communities sanctioned by the architects’ intial planning decisions would
be opened up to chance encounters, fostering the emergence of unplanned,
eventual communities. Leaving behind the image of a homogeneous working
class community they would be ready to recast themselves into a new state
of balanced social differentiation. This was the plot behind Byker’s initiative
of radical architectural heterogeneity.

4.8 Byker’s Unconscious

What lie behind this structure of intentions are a set of historical conditions
carried foward, perhaps unconsciously, by the project. Byker was caught up
in a tension between conflicting forces that needed some form of reconcilia-
tion. On one hand, it embodied the thrust of the welfare state toward social
homogenization, on the other, the emerging logic of neoliberalism and post-
fordist differentiation. It uniquely expressed this contradiction by seeking
to maintain a network of pre-existing social liasons alive, while instituting
a completely renovated and unorthodox material structure for it.

During the decades of 1980 and 1990, however, the onset of new economic
and technological conditions began to impose dramatic transformations on
the social fabric of Byker. These changes in the patterns of social life criti-
cally undermined what had been the basis of Erskine’s isomorphisms. The

61.  This is supported by Tony McGuirk, a former Byker team member, when he states that “the
rolling programme of demolition and re-housing saw family groups reset in the Wall as a cornerstone
to communal continuity. I remember five family relations being housed next to each other on a single
verandahed deck in the Wall. What a shift this felt for architecture and housing at the time, after
the post-war trend of British working communities being split asunder and sent to new towns and
‘overspills’”. See: “Back to Byker”, in The Architects’ Journal Vol. 231 (25/03/2010): 41-47.

215
 evolution of the social makeup of the estate meant that its physical infra-
structure would suddenly be rendered anachronistic and alien for many of
its inhabitants. As Thatcherist policies began to take effect, the shipyards on
the Tyne closed down, and industrial jobs were generally wiped out; rampant
unemployment set in, reaching 30% in 1986. Meanwhile, right-to-buy poli-
cies introduced by the Thatcher administration brought about new forms of
differentiation, this time between those able to acquire their dwellings and
those living on the bare minimum.62 Other disruptive developments took
place on larger temporal and spatial scales. The demographic pyramid suf-
fered an important deformation in Great Britain, reflecting a trend across
developed nations. The number of children per family decreased as women
fertility rate went from 2.72 births in the period 1961-1970 to 1.71 in 1996.63
Familial structures evolved, as the number of single occupant and child-
less households increased, while the routines of those with children were
affected by the growing integration of women into the workforce.64 With
less time to spend at home, the social life of women became more prone to
be fashioned by their work environment than by their domestic activities.65
Since the 1990’s, the forces of immigration and technological changed have
also played a role in reshaping social composition and behavior in England,
and Byker has been no exception to the rule. Recent trends show a growing
share of foreign-born immigrant communities bringing with them habits
and lifestyles that frequently run into conflict with those of previously es-
tablished dwellers.66 Lastly, the spread of digitally networked communities
and the generalized increase in workforce mobility are also factors that have
attacked the protagonism of the living quarters as the privileged originator
of direct social relations.

In closing this chapter, it is necessary to restate our understanding of Byker

as an architectural project that merits attention due to its ability to bridge a
period of dramatic cultural and political upheaval -seen by many observers
as the death rattle of modernity- expressing its promises and contradictions

62.  See: Sarah Glynn, op. cit.

63. Source: World Bank.

64.  Few married women had jobs outside the household in old Byker. See: Alison Ravetz (1976): 735.

65. For a detailed treatment of these issues see: Nadine Lefaucher, “Maternity, Family, and the State”
in Georges Duby, Michelle Perrot and Françoise Thébaud (eds.), A History of Women in the West,
Vol. 5: Toward a Cultural Identity in the Twentieth Century (Cambrdige, MA: Harvard University
Press / Belknap Press, 1994): 433-452. Published orginally in Italian as Storia dell Donne in
Occidente. 5 Vols. (1990).

66.  Roger Tillotson, in conversation, January 2012. Tillotson’s impression is confirmed by Oliver

Hawkins’ Report on Migration Statistics (Library of the House of Commons, 2014) for the United
Kingdom, according to which, “the number of people migrating to the UK has been greater than the
number emigrating since 1994. For much of the twentieth century, the numbers migrating to and
from the UK were roughly in balance, and from the 1960s to the early 1990s the number of emigrants
was often greater than the number of immigrants. Over the last two decades, both immigration and
emigration have increased to historically high levels, with immigration exceeding emigration by
more than 100,000 in every year since 1998.”

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with precision and effectiveness -perhaps this might be a way to define its
particular type of beauty. From a socio-cultural standpoint, the seminal
differentiation established in 1887 by Ferdinand Tönnies between com-
munity and society remains a useful conceptual framework to understand
how the erosion of stable communities, and the shift towards increasingly
mediated relationships, have challenged the model of Byker, linking it to its
post-war ideological breeding grounds, and making it seem, in many ways,
antiquated. From a socio-political standpoint, Paolo Virno’s characterization
of the multitude as the figure that recaptures the processes of individuation
emerging in the post 1968 context, provides a model to understand how, at
the same time, Byker took a leap forward, stepping squarely into a new his-
torical period the conditions of which are still key to grasp our contemporary
cultural situation. Even if today the link between the notions of housing and
community has waned, the problem persists as to what can be the adequate
tropes to express and construct an idea of collectivity, no matter how feeble
or evanescent the latter may appear to be. To this question we will turn in
the conclusions.

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Conclusions: Mapping the Event
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 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

“...for the fold is precisely a map of the event, a geometric description of the
unexpected, a diagram of the virtual.”1

It is now time to explore how the quest for heterogeneity in housing that
took place during the decades following World War II has extended into the
present. In this final section we will recap the experiences discussed in the
dissertation, assess their evolution, projection, and contemporary relevance,
and, on that basis, lay the foundations for a comparative theory of architec-
tural expression, intended to classify, valorize, and critique recent projects
-but also to imagine new strategies and formal possibilities.

The continuities and innovations in this evolutionary process will be ad-

dressed, focusing on the relationship between typological organization and
the envelope as an expressive medium. Questions will be posed as to what
constructions of the user are operative in each case, and what actions on the
part of actual individuals, particularly regarding to the idea of communal
integration, are invited by each of the architectural strands within the pro-
posed system of classification.

The latter will proceed through a matrix bringing together buildings from
different epochs, in an effort to compare and systematize their modes of
difference-production. Two underlying assumptions are at work here that
justify the comparison. The first one is that beyond the differences in the
contexts where they originated, all of these buildings “perform” in the present
and therefore amenable to being compared to one another. The second is that
despite changes undergone by the political and cultural context during the
last three decades, the user has remained an effective source of potential -a
valid excuse, in Alejandro Zaera-Polo’s terms- to animate architectural form.2

Toward the Event

The buildings revisited in the dissertation, from the Unité to Byker, show
that the problem of constructing difference in collective housing architecture
has remained a site of controversy and experimentation for more than half
a century. The various formulae developed served to articulate, in material
and psychosocial form, specific conceptions of the user, both in its individual
and collective expressions. As a conclusion to the dissertation, I will argue
that during the last two decades we have witnessed the development of some
of the mapping techniques originated in the 1960’s and 1970’s, but, perhaps
most significantly, the emergence of novel modes of constructing the idea
of the collective in architecture. These latter formations reject the idea of
fixity, yet not in the name of user autonomy or formal indeterminacy, but on
the conviction that architecture can no longer perform as a narrative plot -a

1.  See: Robert E. Somol, “Dummy Text, or the Diagrammatic Basis of Contemporary Architecture”,
in Peter Eisenman, Diagram Diaries. Introduction by R. E. Somol (New York: Universe Publishing,
1999): 21.

2.  See: Alejandro Zaera-Polo, “Theory of the Excuse: The Erotics of Material Agency”, in Harvard
Design Magazine no. 35 (2012).

221
 story line- for the shaping and registration of stable collectives; rather, their
belief is that architecture can only openly aspire to registering the temporary
coalescence of individual trajectories, attitudes, life-styles, and life-actions.
This notion of the collective is imbued with the materiality of time, and
hinges on its passage to capture the emergence, evolution, and waning of
forms no longer conceivable as anything but events. But let us first review the
evolution set forth in the previous chapters to better grasp these arguments.

In chapters one and two, a survey of emblematic experiences fetched prec-

edents in the 19th and early 20th centuries, to focus on the post-war WWII
scenario. During the 1950’s, Team 10 set up what turned out to be a lasting
system of coordinates that pivoted around the idea of community. This sys-
tem admitted a broad range of possibilities spanning from the Miesinspired
“nonrhetoric” of Alison and Peter Smithson, to Byker’s hyperbolic articula-
tion of surface and space. By the 1960’s, the accumulation of built evidence
on which to evaluate the hurried reconstruction and urbanization efforts
of the previous decade was able to expose the limitations of the system. A
new breed of architects, activists, and intellectuals launched an attack on it,
arguing for absolute user autonomy, even if this could mean a radical shift
in the definition of the role of architecture, or, indeed, the possibility of its
effacement. Byker’s exaggerated formal differentiation -bordering almost on
caricature- was, in part, an exemplar of architecture’s response to that chal-
lenge. Nonetheless, the system of coordinates set up by Team 10 would find
its conceptual limits when the ideas of user participation and autonomy, as
proposed by the radicals, began to undermine the agency of the architect as
form-giver. Suffice it to review the invectives of critics such as Robert Good-
man, John Turner, and Jane Jacobs to picture the state of disrepair to which
the modern inheritance had devolved. In order to overcome this stoppage,
architecture had to rely on new theoretical instruments.

As shown in chapter 3, this upgrading was already taking shape since the early
1960’s. New, all-encompassing discourses on architectural form, originating
both in cybernetics, systems theory, formalism, and Gestalt psychology were
able to expand the range of disciplinary possibilities beyond the humanistic
frame that had been imposed on it by the influence of Sigfried Giedion, José
Luis Sert, and others, during the post-war CIAM congresses, and later by
Team 10. One such theory was forwarded by Christopher Alexander in his
Notes on the Synthesis of Form. Although predicated on human concerns,
going from small design objects to entire territories, Notes’ expansive account
of the logic of form, including a pre-architectural world regulated by uncon-
scious collective processes, had a strong de-centering effect. Its inclusiveness
forced Alexander’s deceptively humble book to produce generalizations and
abstractions that far exceeded the view of architecture as service (to man,
community, etc.) that had become predominant in the years after the war. A
different position was held by Peter Eisenman, who, apparently standing at
the antipodes defended a conception of architecture as an autonomous spa-

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tial practice modeled on painting and sculpture. Yet, Eisenman’s theses also
inscribed architecture within the matrix of a structuralist theory of differen-
tiation borrowed from language. Endowed with autonomy, architecture was,
here too, able to overcome its definition as service. The map was introduced
also in chapter three. Germane to semiotics and cybernetics, the map points
to the common ground on which seemingly opposing theories were standing.
By digging under those oppositions, the map made it possible to formulate a
unified model that set form in relationship to information. Even radical forms
of participatory practice can now be accounted for in a theory of architectural
form, where the absence of topdown coordination, or its invisibility, could
be seen as a deliberate attempt to induce noise in what would otherwise be
a modulated signal. In fact, distances formerly construed as political –for
example, that between Alison and Peter Smithson’s sensibility for soft forms
of appropriation and John Turner’s radical stance on selfbuild environments
and user participation3 - could be recast in aesthetic terms: i.e., how much
noise, or uncontrolled, bottom-up interference can be accepted in a process
of collective construction.

In chapter four Ralph Erskine’s experience in Byker was presented as a

synthesis of the expectations that had built up during the 1960’s around the
relationship between architecture and society. In Byker, Erskine put forward
a sophisticated architectural proposition, while simultaneously defending
the value of social interaction and select forms of participatory practice. In
contrast to radical ideas that relied on displacing the architect from the center
stage, Erskine’s politically savvy approach sought to orchestrate a synergy
among the various actors involved in the process, without relinquishing the
idea of the project as his core responsibility. His view on participation was
that it constituted a means to empower architecture -but only if architects
were wise enough to take the issue into their own hands. Grounded on this
discourse, Erskine undertook an almost heroic enterprise, developing a
brand of architectural heterogeneity that was modeled after an equally het-
erogeneous ideal community. The concept of isomorphism was introduced
here to characterize the mediation between the pre-existing community, an
idealized representation of it, and the resulting organization of the project.
The isomorphism is a design method that consists in detecting and taking
advantage of latent similarities among components of a design problem,
i.e.: site, program, user, and pre-existing models or typologies. It is related
to Aldo Rossi’s notion of an analogue architecture, but it differs from it in
that it gives greater importance to contingent and empirical conditions. At
Byker, analysis reveals correspondences between the existing communal
structure and the building structure (for example: the grouping of age-related
typologies, or that of families with children), but, equally, it reveals the im-
position of orders extracted from foreign, ideal, or imaginary communities;
in any case, the resulting model is characterized by its internal subdivisions

3.      See: “Signs of Occupancy”, cit.

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 of various sizes, mixture, fuzziness in the definition of its boundaries, formal
and functional continuities, conditions of openness and closure, and a high
stimulation of the visual field. Regarding the first set of correspondences,
the immediate effect of the isomorphic structure is to amplify, and to make
existing differences visible 4; regarding the second set, its effect is to create
propensities for the future development of heterogeneous communities.

Four Theses on the Evolution of the Map

If we now took a look at recent trends on collective housing design, we would
realize that while there are elements of Byker, such as its political pragmatism
and its conception of urban fragmentation and ambiguity that have regained
currency, its approach to the articulation of heterogeneity looks, in many
ways, aged and difficult to revamp. Byker taught us that fragmentation of
the program can be beneficial for both symbolic and practical reasons; the
constraining of formal, functional and administrative units to groups com-
prising 50-100 persons is one of its clearest premises. It also stated that
fuzziness and ambiguity in the definition of certain borders are necessary
means to soften transitions and add a sense of urban-life complexity to a
large development. Yet, why is it that we have the distinct impression that
its architecture has aged? What changes have happened in our conception of
the user that allow us to see it as an exemplar of its time, and to appreciate
it precisely on those terms, but not so much of our own? To answer these
questions I would like to advance a number of hypotheses that might serve
to frame the evolution undergone by the architectural canon in the last 30
years. These hypotheses address a process of cultural change that has af-
fected the system of architecture as a whole in the context of post-utopian,
and post-welfare state operative conditions, but also in a medium where
post-modern semiotic regimes have already become exhausted and sterile.
Their attempt is to identify the theoretical vectors along which it is possible
to construct a narrative that translates the external conditions of operation
of each project into a problem of material organization. They seek to relate
conditions that define the global status of the discipline, with demands that
are placed specifically in practices pertaining to the construction of an im-
age of the collective.

1. Repetition: from mechanical to non-linear

The Unité and Byker pushed the boundaries of formal heterogeneity by resort-
ing to complex strategies of repetition of a relatively small number of dwelling
prototypes and structural modules. In doing so, they inverted the modernist
logic of serialism and production of internally homogeneous collective iden-
tities. Their attempt was to utilize repetition to generate diversity. In Byker
this was pursued by means of the crystallization of individual dwelling units
into building types of various scales, forms, and material configurations. Yet,
their modes of repetitive organization, based on conventional hierarchies,

4.      I am not aware of studies dealing with the social consequences that follow from making these
structures visible.

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stratification, local symmetry, and like-with-like grouping became unable to

convey the self-perception of collectives that are increasingly de-stratified,
divergent, multifarious, unstable, and short-termed. As a response to this,
practices that still operate within the parameters of content-mapping have
abandoned rationalized modes of repetition as the means by which to orga-
nize collectivities. They have embraced a new mathematics of irrational and
a-periodic relations as the proper embodiment of heterogeneity. Their tropes
include non-linear repetition, contingent aggregation, and formal continuity
imposed from the outside (frequently by a container with a simple, recogniz-
able shape, yet with no relation to the smaller scale elements of the program).
MVRDV’s Silodam building in Amsterdam exemplifies this tendency.

2. Part-to-whole relationships: from discrimination to continuity and inte-

gration
2.1 Kit-of-parts, closed systems, based on structures that accept clip-on,
plug-in, or bolting of repetitive components at various scales have proven
technologically and formally too rigid to remain viable. Despite their promise
of a bottom-up, democratic expression of social conditions, Metabolist and
British Pop experiments such as Archigram could only resolve the tension
between the repetitive and the singular by separating them formally, con-
structionally and functionally.

2.2 Within a similar context of progressive politics, Dutch structuralist

experiments can be credited with having taken the idea of privileging the
expression of the part over that of the whole to its extreme level. 5 This has
remained a fruitful strategy although it never was clear how it was supposed
to resolve the integration of systems that have a necessarily larger scale. If
one looks at Moshe Safdie’s Habitat ‘67, for example, it turns out that there
is a “backside” of the building where elevator shafts and circulation bridges
are somehow hidden from view, at least from the main elevation facing the
river. Thus, the conflict remains unresolved. In recent projects, such as BIG
+ JDS’s Mountain Dwellings in Copenhagen, a hybrid typology is attempted
by mixing a mat building with a sloping structure reminiscent of Habitat
‘67. However, there are some important differences: the border condition
becomes protagonist and is negotiated by the insertion of a large scale plinth
that contains parking spaces, as well as by cropping the repetitive pattern of
dwelling elements with the exact profile of the site. 6

5.  See: Alejandro Zaera Polo, “Patterns, Fabrics, Prototypes and Tessellations” in Architectural
Design Vol. 79, n. 6 (2009): 18-27.

6.  This strategy, also prevalent in the work of MVRDV, is most likely inherited from OMA’s
late 1980’s reassessment of the figure as a means to imbue public structures with a sense of
monumentality through a top-down packaging of complex architectural programs. This can be seen
especially in Koolhaas’s projects for Congrexpo in Lille, the Zeebrugge maritime terminal in Belgium,
or the competition entry for the National Library of France. Koolhaas himself speculates about this
return to the figure in relationship to a new awareness of Europe as an expanded, integrated political
entity shortly after 1989 and especially around the myth of 1992. See: Alejandro Zaera-Polo, “Finding
Freedoms: Conversations with Rem Koolhaas”, in El Croquis n. 53 (1993): 6.

225
 2.3 Open systems based on structural frames that accept change and growth,
at least in principle, go back to Le Corbusier’s Dom-Ino diagram of 1914. Yet,
their implementation as structures with user-built infill areas -such as those
formulated by John Habraken, and tested in the international competition
for PREVI Lima- have often proved limited in maintaining and building up
value over time.7 The successful examples tend to be those where expansions
and user interventions happen inside the boundaries set by a full-fledged
container. On the contrary, the implementation of exposed, self-build, infill
components has resulted in irregular organizations that fail to address the
public dimension of the street, as well as the scale and texture of the sur-
rounding city; ghettoization becomes hard to avoid. However, these systems
have been revitalized and are being explored with reasonable success by prac-
tices such as Elemental in their projects for Iquique and Monterrey (where
an evolution of the same typology has taken place as a result of the need to
have greater control over the frame) 8. Under certain conditions of design,
they appear to still hold promise: (a) the frame has to outweigh the infill in
terms of its visibility, (b) the frame has to set the final form, which cannot
be affected by the infill, (c) even if the infill passes as “open”, it should be
curated through the application of consistent criteria.

2.4 Boundary or envelope conditions have acquired greater importance and

autonomy. The importance of the envelope as the main locus of architec-
tural interest has been theorized recently as the result of the increasingly
deterministic pressures of technical, financial and programmatic logics on
the interior layout and planning of buildings. 9 In the face of such conditions,
the problem of the external appearance and configuration -envelope design-
seems to remain one of the provinces where architects find their expertise
most unchallenged. The autonomy of the envelope follows in part from the
previous observation, but also from the fact that the need to express the
wholeness or closure of the building form has been recognized as a relevant
issue. This challenge posed to the molecular conception of architecture that
had elevated the expression of the individual component to a dominating
position, owes much to the influence of thinkers that re-appropriated the
collective condition of the city as a field of reference for architecture. 10 The
architectural possibilities that have emerged from the new relevance of the
envelope range from subtle forms of continuity between interior and exterior
to violent clashes between program and envelope, to negotiated transitions

7.  The dwelling as an open system has been subject to recent efforts of theorization and historization.
See: Bernard Leupen, Frame and Generic Space. A Study into the Changeable Dwelling Proceeding
from the Permanent (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2006). Leupen’s book offers a valuable account
of the issue focusing primarily on the typological dimension of the dwelling within the context of
European welfare architecture.

8.  “Monterrey Housing / ELEMENTAL” 09 Mar 2010. ArchDaily. Accessed 09/02/2015. http://

www.archdaily.com/?p=52202

9.  See: Alejandro Zaera-Polo, “The Politics of the Envelope”, in Volume n. 17 (2008).

10.  This includes both thinkers of the metropolis such as Rem Koolhaas, and thinkers of the
historical city, such as Aldo Rossi.

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 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

and juxtapositions between a pixelated and a smooth, continuous logic (BIG,

OMA, H&DM).

3. Fields of reference: from stable form to the event (Mies’s revenge)

A growing number of architects seem to have abandoned the belief in the

fixed map as a viable basis for architectural expression. Now, this attitude
does not imply quitting the interest in organization or reverting to the idea
of spatial indeterminacy; what is at stake is the agency of expression and
faciality and their relation to organization. On the contrary, to renounce the
idea of the fixed map as a form of expression means to recognize that what
was assumed to be a stable field of reference can no longer be called upon, as
such, to substantiate decisions on form -and this realization need not evolve
from sociological reflection more than from an observation of the exhaustion
of certain tropes and habits. In contemporary metropolitan contexts, social
patterns have lost their appeal as sources from/onto which organization can
be successfully mapped. This is due to a combination of different factors,
but perhaps two issues can be singled out as the most salient difficulties dis-
couraging such possibility. The first is the fact that, in practice, an increasing
number of dwellings produced since the end of the welfare state period have
been addressed to collectives that have little historical or cultural background
in common; they most likely belong to the same low-income bracket of the
real-estate market, but that is often insufficient to define a condition of com-
monality. This can be particularly troublesome in metropolitan areas where
converging migratory movements concoct dynamic, unforeseen, and often
volatile cultural hybridizations. Nevertheless, unlikely or “difficult” socio-
cultural assemblages do emerge, and this constitutes the second aspect that
might help to explain the retreat from the idea of the fixed map: if a piece
of the socio-urban fabric is perceived to have become self-conscious of its
(usually unwanted) heterogeneity, architecture can only reasonably strive to
steer away from such perception. That could be one of the reasons why we
have witnessed the return of strategies that play a double game of isotropism
and homogenization, while offering continuous, sensitive media to register
subtle changes in the environment without crystallizing them into a stable
form. Mies van der Rohe was certainly a precursor of this attitude privileging
blankness and continuity, as attested by his apartment buildings in Chicago
and Detroit. Their extensive glazing became the surface on which the internal
life of his buildings could be projected, as it developed through the hours
of the day, and the seasons of the year. The material regularity, autonomy,
and monotony of the late Mies have been the basis on which a number of
projects in Europe have built on, during the last fifteen years. In any case,
most architecture of collective housing has renounced to its pursuit of being
read as the expression and stabilization of social forms.

4. Agency: from flexibility to interactivity

Miesian isotropism, however, is not sufficient to account for the development
of new types of skins and interior furnishings that invite the active engagement

227
 of the user in their (re) configuration. Sensitive surfaces such as the operable
facades in Jean Nouvel’s Nemausus housing in Nimes (1987), Herzog and
De Meuron’s Rue des Suisses in Paris (1996), or FOA’s Carabanchel housing
in Madrid (2007), are not only apt to enhance the registration of eventual
constellations or life-patterns occurring in time, but also suggest the pos-
sibility that the dwelling can be transformed and configured to respond to
a range of environmental conditions. Furthermore, it is also suggested that
buildings go beyond the framing of possibilities for action, becoming active
themselves on the basis of scripted behaviors (which may be complex enough
to develop autonomy). This tendency prefigures and adopts the expansive
cultural trope of interactivity, summoning the 1960’s ideal of changeability
without compromising integrity and control over the architectural system. 11
Indeed, even if these buildings do not have the level of technical sophistication
required for them to function as fully automated responsive organisms, it is
possible to imagine that they have been conceived in such way as to extract
maximum aesthetic effect out of such (potential) mechanisms. One does
not need to venture far into a technological future to envisage the effects of
systems capable of conducting complex actions of spatial customization and
environmental control. In order for their expressive yield to become most
powerful, however, design operations are necessary; an example of this is
represented by FOA’s full elimination of corner articulations in Carabanchel.
To accomplish this, the structure had to be pushed back from the plane of the
facade, or else, the presence of the columns would have forced a reduction of
size of the bays immediately adjacent to them (as is the case in Mies’s Lake
Shore Drive apartments). At any rate, Carabanchel housing can be seen as a
radicalization of Mies van der Rohe’s isotropy intended to allow the forces
of usage to express themselves with greater purity.

Comparative synthesis

In the chart below buildings and projects treated in the dissertation are set
within a wider selection of examples constituting their genealogies –both
precedent and progeny. While it is assumed that many of these buildings
owe their form to the existence of specific, direct predecessors that somehow
established a lineage (for example: Francisco Saénz de Oíza’s M30 Housing in
Madrid would not exist, as it is, without Byker), time has been eliminated, or
flattened, in the comparison, in order to focus on the conceptual. However,
it could be re-introduced in a further iteration as a third dimension of the
chart if the purpose would be to shed light on their evolutionary relationships.
The two-dimensional organization of the chart defines a space of possibili-
ties for relating types of building organization and typologies of expression.
The vertical axis runs through a simplified gamut of housing typologies. It

11. Jeremy Till and Tatjana Schneider provide an extensive discussion of the issue of flexibility in
housing throughout the 20th century. While their analysis is useful in many respects, it chooses to
remain within the cultural logic of flexibility (or adaptability), denying the building the possibility of
even a degree of autonomous agency. See their: Flexible Housing (Oxford: Elsevier, 2007).

228
 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

would be possible –and for some purposes, necessary- to introduce further

definition and specificity in this classification by recognizing differences
between point access and deck access in slab and wall types, for example.
Similarly, low rise types could be broken down into courtyard, terrace, and
cluster. Finally, there are various forms of hybridization of types that cannot
be included here for the sake of maintaining a visually simple organization,
but the way the classification is set up presupposes this possibility. The list
does not claim to be exhaustive, only to cover the broadest possible territory
in as few strokes as possible. The first five entries selected to configure this
dimension of the chart are topologically simple, and cover the range from
the predominantly horizontal, to the predominantly vertical. The last entry
represents the family of topologically complex buildings that result from the
urbanization of housing that took place in the 1960’s. Although most of the
known examples of this typology are based on the slab, there are cases where
towers and perimeter blocks are also implicated, such as in Le Corbusier’s
networked Immeuble Villas (1923), or in Kenzo Tange’s prototypes for the
Tokyo Plan (1960).

The horizontal axis of the chart maps ways in which difference is produced
in realtionship with the idea of the isomorphism. The sequence, from left to
right, indexes the influence of time on the relationship between program (or
user) and formal expression. The snapshot-isomorphic map is defined, as in
chapter 3, as a fixed material index of a given social territory understood as
a field of reference. Two sub-categories, Variable and Variegated, introduce
a finer distinction between these strategies. In the first one the influence of
program, site, and user are absorbed by an internally consistent medium;
in the second one, external factors play a direct role in determining the
formal outcome. Next, the Hybrid category comprises situations where part
of the structure is considered to be fixed and permanent, whereas another
part is susceptible to being built and reconfigured by each individual user.
This strategy exploits the pragmatic and aesthetic effects of an evolutionary
process, although with debatable consequences.12 Finally, the third category,
Process-isomorphic, focuses on the expressive types that permit the activity
of the users to be registered on the envelope. These types repress any direct
outward projection of program and organization by running a regular template
through the envelope. Within this column a further distinction is created to
single out the recent development of skins that can be modified to accom-
modate varying needs of privacy, daylight, or insulation. These continuous
skins allow buildings to change their aspect somewhat unpredictably, assum-

12. The long-term effects generated by such hybrid strategies have been studied in a recent work
on the PREVI development in LIMA. The authors state that, in countries with few resources, self-
build strategies allow inhabitants to maximize economic profit from the investment in housing.
From an economic point of view, the question remains open as to whether this strategy assures that
dwellings retain acceptable standards of inhabitation. Therefore it is unclear if the investment (and
effort) made by the inhabitants adds value, as oppose just surface area, to the original dwelling. See:
Fernando García-Huidobro, Diego Torres Torriti and Nicolás Tugas, Time Builds! The Experimental
Housing Project (PREVI), Lima: genesis and outcome (Barcelona: Gustavo Gili, 2008).

229
 ing configurations that can range from the totally homogenous to seemingly
complex and disorderly forms.

In all cases we see the presumption that there exists a generic user who ex-
pects the buildings to be expressive of a certain complexity and heterogene-
ity of their internal life. Yet the main differences seem to lie in the question
of what responses the phenomenal presence of the buildings is bound to
elicit. The more we move toward the right side of the chart, the more we are
confronted with a context where explicit forms of identification are avoided.
Identification with any specific part or area of the building becomes difficult
as the local features which distinguish any such area are dependent on a
temporary configuration. What transpires is the notion that while the as-
sociation between the user and the building as a whole may be possible and
desirable -even if it is no more than the expression of a virtual community
that coalesces around the existence of an object-, the anonymity and generic
condition of the individual may again have become necessary in a context
where extreme societal and cultural differences are a default characteristic
of the collective.

Lastly, I would like to suggest two ways in which the chart might be able to
posit conceptual challenges to investigations in contemporary housing; both
are implicit in the chart’s design. The first one consists in deploying a strategy
of ambiguity: the possibility of creating hybrids (especially by short-circuiting
or mixing components of the vertical axis) or exploring the interstices between
one category and its adjacent ones. The second one involves a strategy of
exaggeration: it could be pursued, for example, by pushing the boundaries
of the responsive capacities of buildings, not only in terms of developing a
greater sensitivity in relationship to their fields of reference, but also in the
sense of the possibility of scripting their responses to those fields in ways that
promote the emergence of complex yet consistent formal organizations and
behaviors. This would extend the possibility for architecture to remain capable
of agglomerating collectives as a large scale, identity-constructing instrument,
without the burden of having to assume configurations that pigeonhole users,
individually or by groups, into readily recognizable categories. Abstraction, in
this context, would be liberated from its associations with modern linearity
and homogeneity, and heterogenetiy would become dissociated from its as-
sociations with picturesque, fragmented or figurative sensibilities.

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 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

Comparative chart: Typologies of organization and typologies of expression

Org. Type / Snapshot-isomorphic map Hybrid (framework) Process-isomorphic map

Exp. Type
(spatial field of reference) (spatio-temporal field of reference)

Variable Variegated Open / Closed Pixelated Variable

(System) (Picturesque) Incremental (Transmissive) (Responsive)
Frame as envelope Frame as infrastr

Low rise Ralph Erskine Elemental

(terrace, Byker Iquique
courtyard, (lowrise) Monterrey
cluster
detached)

Mat Rem Koolhaas James Stirling Aldo Van Eyck

Nexus PREVI Lima Herman
Hertzberger

Moshe Safdie
Aldo Van Eyck Habitat ‘67
PREVI Lima (3d pixellation)

BIG
Mountain
Dwellings (3d
pixellation)

Slab A+P Smithson Lucien Kroll Le Corbusier FOA

Robin Hood Woluvé Unité d’ Carabanchel
Gardens Habitation
Ralph Erskine Marseille Herzog &
Byker (link De Meuron
blocks) Rue des Suisses

MVRDV Jean Nouvel

Silodam, Nemaussus
Mirador
Housing OFIS
Honeycomb
apts.

Wall Ralph Erskine Le Corbusier

Byker Plan Obus
(single aspect, (perimeter
double aspect) block)

Francisco J.
Sáenz de Oíza
M30 Housing

Tower Erskine Site Archigram Mies van

Byker (point Highrise of Plug-in City der Rohe
block) Homes Lake Shore
Kisho Drive (2d
Kurokawa pixellation)
Nakagin
Tower OMA

Herzog &
De Meuron
NYC (3d
pixellation)

Web Candilis- A+P Smithson Kisho Le Corbusier

Josic-Woods Golden Lane Kurokawa Immeuble Villas
Toulouse-le- Cities In the (homogenous 2d
mirail Air pixellation)

Jack Lynn + Kenzo Tange

Ivor Smith Housing
Park Hill superblock in
the Tokyo Plan

231
 In the name of (x)

Throughout this dissertation I have argued that since the moment when
collective social housing became a form of state intervention, the architects
involved with these projects -especially those in which the final users could
not be known- had to operate on the basis of representations -or better,
conceptual constructions- that would allow them to test their propositions
in the absence of empirical means to do so. These tests had to be conjec-
tural, and were always informed by unconscious drives and premises. What
changed over the course of about a century was not the existence of those
constructions -even if, since the 1960’s and 1970’s significant efforts have
been made to such end- but the means and resources, as well as the political
and theoretical frameworks that permitted their formation.

This is the case because, at the bottom, this mode of operation is not just
the province of housing, as a particular subfield of architecture, but is coex-
tensive with the very definition of projective practice. The idea that design
is an open process whose outcome relies deeply on discursive and technical
mediations, took on a new turn in the late 1990’s. As has been pointed out
by former Harvard professor and critic William Saunders, a generation of
architects who began practicing during the 1990’s endeavored to reframe the
possibilities of architecture beyond the stifling dialectic of detached autonomy
versus servile heteronomy.13 Rather than trying to found their contribution to
cultural development through criticism of the norm and distancing from the
everyday, the New Architectural Pragmatists, as labeled by Saunders, sought
to extract innovative potential by operating through the givens of practice,
usage, technology, and normative conditions. In this context, Alejandro
Zaera-Polo’s previously mentioned theory of the excuse is an attempt to re-
conceptualize the role of discursive mediation beyond image-driven methods
such as analogy and metaphor. Zaera-Polo says the excuse is deliberately
interposed between the subject’s desire and the actions that follow from
it, “an attempt to relocate volition with the process of viable architectural
practice”. It is presented as an engine of architectural decision-making that
deviates from ideal visions or common sense responses, without naturalizing
its rationale as either truthful or benign. Remaining open to questioning in
view of its effects, the excuse is a hypothesis about the relation between a
design decision and its externalities. It engineers a relationship between
the project and its performance outside the disciplinary domain to which it
has to be accountable. Moreover, the excuse promises a way out of the triple
bind of the architect, either prey of his desire, dominated by the client, or
detached and celibate lest he become an instrument of power. Finally, while
the excuse, as proposed by Zaera-Polo, is an argument or statement –and in
that sense belongs within the larger category of theory-, it does not make a
claim to truth, only to performance. In contrast to a theoretical statement

13.    See: William S. Saunders, The New Architectural Pragmatism (Minneapolis: University of

Minnesota Press: 2007).

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 DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

which must operate within the established scientific and academic milieu,
the excuse recognizes and establishes its reliance on a specific discursive and
political context. Whereas the argument is legitimized by its internal logic
and its truth value, the excuse is legitimized by its operativity within a set of
ad-hoc shared conventions: it functions because it belongs in an explicitly or
implicitly accepted pact, or understanding, within which it may succeed even
if its truth value is unclear. The excuse, says Zaera Polo, “might be the Trojan
horse that enables material agency -which would be otherwise resisted in its
naked form by the prevailing discursive practices-, to unleash its potentials.”14

Although “pure” theory ought to be accountable to universal criteria of truth

and verification, the above reasoning suggests that when architectural praxis
unfolds on a public stage –as is the case when dealing with collective hous-
ing- it is aesthetic and political conditionings that must reign supreme. In
such context, the architect-actor, by definition, must wear the mask of the
excuse, or, in other words, must conflate political and aesthetic interests in
the construction of a case and a public persona, behind which lies him or
herself, as person. The more skillful and sensitive the construction of this
persona is with respect to the conditions of the context, the further the char-
acter will be able to mobilize a given agenda. In this scheme of things there
is neither room for an image of pure transparency in the characterization of
the architect, nor for simple linearity in the relationship between discourse
and action. There may be, instead, an operative theory, such as that of the
excuse, and a meta-theoretical framework of limited practical value but sig-
nificant nonetheless because of its capacity to abide by universal protocols.
If applied to the notion of the user, we may distinguish quite between those
two levels or types of theory. Indeed, throughout the dissertation, we have
identified “naked” discourses on the user, especially those originating in the
human sciences, which claimed to be objective and universal, purportedly
bringing into the discipline a set of solid instrumental notions about the
human subject and its psycho-social structuring. Likewise, we have singled
out ways in which architecture appropriated those discourses to pursue its
own causes. In these instances, we might say today, the architects that be-
came more relevant within their discipline were skillful practitioners of the
excuse. So skillful, that in fact it was often believed (and still it is nowadays)
that they were acting “naked”. However, these skills made it possible for the
discipline to engage successfully in projects of sweeping social aspirations
that would have otherwise been unavailable to it. Without them, their impact
on our material world would have been more limited, and our experience of
it, probably less rich.

14.      See: “Theory of the Excuse”: 272.

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 Doctorado en Arquitectura y Estudios Urbanos - FADEU

Explicit mapping (variegated envelopes) Eventual Mapping (variab

MVRDV – Silodam (Amsterdam) FOA – Carabanchel (Madrid)

Lucien Kroll – Woluwé (Lovaina) Mies Van der Rohe – Lafayette

Ralph Erskine – Byker (Newcastle) Alison and Peter Smithson – Ro

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DOCTORADO EN ARQUITECTURA Y ESTUDIOS URBANOS | J. Varas

ble envolventes) Metaphoric Mapping (pixelated envelopes)

BIG– Mountain Housing (Copenhaguen)

Park (Detroit) Herman Hertzberger – Centraal Beheer (Apeldoorn)

obin Hood Gardens (London) Aldo van Eyck – Orphanage (Amsterdam)

235
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Introducción

“Pensé que podría ser el lecho del habitante, cuya monstruosa anatomía se
revelaba así, oblicuamente, como la de un animal o un dios, por su sombra…
Asimismo recuerdo una V de espejos que se perdía en la tiniebla superior.
¿Cómo sería el habitante? ¿Qué podría buscar en este planeta, no menos
atroz para él que él para nosotros?”

Jorge Luis Borges, 19751

Autopsia

“There are more things” es una narración publicada por Jorge Luis Borges
en 1975 cuya trama se centra en la remodelación de una casa en las afueras
de Buenos Aires. Envuelto en misterio, el diseño de los nuevos interiores del
edificio es encomendado a un carpintero luego de que el arquitecto original,
horrorizado por el encargo, se niega a realizar el trabajo. Sobre el final de la
historia el diseño de los nuevos muebles e interiores se revela en su inhumana
monstruosidad, sugiriendo su pertenencia a una criatura de anatomía
inimaginable y procedencia incierta. En el pasaje citado, la figura de la sombra
captura la naturaleza de la relación entre el cuerpo extraño y los objetos que
extienden su existencia material. Su poética metaforiza la transferencia de
información de un cuerpo cuyo conocimiento directo nos es negado, a una figura
bidimensional que permitiría inferir las características del primero. La imagen
de la sombra nos lanza de lleno en el campo de la proyección arquitectónica,
ya que en la construcción de una relación no simbólica entre un objeto y su
representación, se perfila una estrecha relación con nociones relevantes de la
teoría arquitectónica reciente: el rastro, el mapa y el índice. Pero no es sólo a
través de la explotación poética de la relación entre la forma y la representación
que la historia de un ser extraño que habita en la periferia de Buenos Aires
establece el tono para iniciar una reflexión sobre la arquitectura. Es a través
de la introducción de la idea de lo monstruoso que la historia de Borges va
más allá de la mera referencia a cuestiones de proyección arquitectónica, ya
que al sugerir la posibilidad de tales malformaciones, trae implícitamente a la
mesa todo el sistema del humanismo arquitectónico y lo deja abierto, como si la
escena estuviese siendo preparada para una autopsia: la del cuerpo mismo de
la arquitectura. Si bien la relación entre el cuerpo del sujeto arquitectónico y su
entorno material sigue siendo la clave para descifrar la realidad horrorosa de la
historia, son los valores y las formas humanas las que se trasladan rápidamente
fuera del centro. La arquitectura se vuelve a mostrar, aunque sea sólo por
un instante, como un dominio mayor a lo que puede ser captado por nuestra
imaginación.

La historia se inscribe en el contexto del interés de Borges por la cultura

popular y de su coqueteo con la ciencia ficción en particular. En términos más
generales, sin embargo, participa de una ola de interés en la noción de un
“otro” no-divino, capaz de dislocar la humanidad de su lugar privilegiado en el
centro de la agencia y el orden deliberado, como se refleja en las producciones

1.  Jorge Luis Borges, “There are more things”, en El Libro de Arena (Buenos Aires: Emecé, 1975).

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 culturales pop de los años 50 y 60 –por ejemplo, el boom de películas de ciencia
ficción Hollywoodenses– y en los discursos emergentes de la cibernética y el
estructuralismo, que comenzaron a florecer en el período posterior a la Segunda
Guerra Mundial.

Diagnóstico

Es precisamente en el contexto de la crisis de posguerra de las representaciones

modernas del ser humano que la presente investigación establece su punto de
partida. Los años de la posguerra marcan el inicio de un período en el que la crisis
del “hombre” se abordó simultáneamente por las filosofías de Ernst Cassirer
(1945), Hanna Arendt (1958), Roland Barthes (1957) o Michel Foucault (1966),
por expresiones culturales vernáculas y pop como el boom de la ciencia ficción
en el cine, y por el auge de las nuevas ciencias de la cibernética, de sistemas y
de complejidad. La arquitectura no fue en absoluto ajena a esta evolución, que
la golpeó con toda su fuerza. Muchas figuras y procesos dan fe de los desafíos
planteados a la arquitectura por las nuevas configuraciones subjetivas de las
décadas de la posguerra. Por un lado deben mencionarse los cambios en el
discurso de su portavoz hegemónico, el Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture
Moderne (CIAM), que dio un giro rápido de cuestiones abstractas de eficiencia,
ergonomía e higiene, a una imaginación casi romántica de la ciudad y sus
habitantes. En sintonía con esas transformaciones estuvo la evolución del
pensamiento de sus propios ideólogos, es decir, de Sigfried Giedion, que
tomó nota de las consecuencias de deshumanización de la modernidad en
Mechanization Takes Command (1948), y de Le Corbusier, cuyo interés en la
obtención de una nueva idea de armonía universal a partir de las proporciones
del cuerpo humano lo mantuvo ocupado desde 1943 hasta la publicación de
Le Modulor II, en 1955. Por otro lado está el intento abierto de redirigir la
arquitectura moderna hacia un estado de mayor complejidad y sensibilidad, ya
sea sobre la base de un humanismo antropológicamente informado, o sobre un
interés sociológico en nociones de comunidad, individualidad y heterogeneidad;
esta fue esencialmente la tarea emprendida por los arquitectos que formaron
Team 10 a mediados de la década de 1950. En tercer lugar, el surgimiento
de nuevas formas de conocimiento científico como la sociología urbana, la
psicología social, y campos aún más especializados como la proxémica y la
sociología de vivienda, constituyó una base cognitiva adicional para reforzar
la deriva ideológica general hacia una nueva representación de la subjetividad
humana.

La hipótesis planteada por la tesis es que, alrededor de 1960, la arquitectura fue

capaz de conjugar su agenda ya bien definida en pos de la heterogeneidad formal,
con las crecientes demandas socio-culturales y socio-políticas para dar atención
al usuario: una nueva figura del sujeto humano que desafió a las definiciones
previamente establecidas que operaban dentro de los dominios de la arquitectura
y el urbanismo. Imposible de concebirlo exclusivamente como un individuo,
ni como un colectivo –es decir, convenientemente pasible de ser interpretado
como ambos–, el usuario se introdujo en el discurso de la arquitectura para
demostrar que las construcciones anteriores del sujeto ya no podían darse por
sentado; anunció la necesidad de revisar nociones universalmente establecidas
de la persona humana confrontándolas con el conocimiento empírico y una serie

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de formaciones conceptuales recientemente disponibles. En concreto, el usuario

llevó a la necesidad de un reconocimiento de la singularidad de las condiciones
culturales y políticas del mundo desarrollado de la posguerra: un ambiente
que se movió hacia sociedades cada vez más en red, integradas por un número
creciente de consumidores educados de la clase media que ya no se prestarían
a ser conducidos por un liderazgo tecnocrático sin plantear resistencia activa u
oposición robusta, como se demostró durante los acontecimientos de 1968.

Durante la modernidad, la tensión entre las figuras de la individualidad y la

colectividad constituyó una fuerza clave en la construcción de nuestras auto-
representaciones como seres humanos. Desde su secularización y cada vez más
desde el siglo 19, la arquitectura tuvo un papel fundamental en la conformación
de esas figuras. La tesis afirma que el concepto del usuario, en su capacidad
de convocar tanto el individualismo emergente del urbanita prototípico de la
posguerra y la noción de un colectivo divergente y diversificado, se convirtió en
una palanca por medio de la cual la disciplina de la arquitectura fue capaz de
re-orientarse a través de imágenes, técnicas y organizaciones que le permitieron
salir de la camisa de fuerza intelectual que le había impuesto la modernidad
instrumental, superando la crisis que la acosó y amenazó con su desaparición a
finales de la década de 1960.

Pero incluso si puede decirse que el discurso del usuario, en sus implicancias
ambiguas pero de largo alcance, haya impregnado el territorio de la arquitectura
como un todo, fue en el campo de la vivienda social colectiva donde fue posible
–y necesario– investigar verdaderamente sus potencialidades. Desde los años
50 en adelante, prácticamente no hubo ningún intento de los arquitectos que
no tomara en cuenta, de una manera u otra, los diversos acontecimientos que
habían dado forma a este nuevo “cliente anónimo”, en las famosas palabras
de Aldo Van Eyck, de la arquitectura del estado de bienestar. Por lo tanto, la
investigación sobre el papel desempeñado por el usuario en la arquitectura está
situada en el contexto de la polémica discursiva y material relacionada con el
diseño de la vivienda social.

La hipótesis principal de la investigación se entrelaza a partir de una serie de

elementos y relatos históricos que son de fácil acceso para el historiador de
la arquitectura del siglo 20. Sin embargo, el modo particular en el que estos
elementos se han articulado es original y –uno espera– capaz de proporcionar
mayor definición a una imagen todavía borrosa y en muchos aspectos, poco
conocida, de la contribución de la arquitectura al desarrollo social. A tal efecto,
la tesis reúne narrativas históricas y hebras de teoría hasta ahora divorciadas
–incluyendo elementos del formalismo, la fenomenología y la cibernética–
colocándolas en una relación complementaria y de refuerzo mutuo. Abrir esta
historia de la arquitectura del siglo 20 a un nuevo examen significa desafiar
algunos de los puntos de vista expuestos por sus protagonistas y observadores
directos, ya sean arquitectos, analistas, críticos o historiadores, con el fin de
superar los partidismos que contaminaron su percepción de los acontecimientos
con los que estuvieron estrechamente involucrados. Una visión esclarecedora
de la historia de la arquitectura y la vivienda social colectiva debe ser capaz
de superar oposiciones conceptuales estériles. Operando dentro del siglo 21,
nuestra tarea debería consistir en redefinir los términos en que entendemos
el trabajo de los arquitectos e instituciones que nos legaron algunos de los
edificios más ambiciosos jamás construidos. Esta operación requiere un

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 análisis integrador en el que las complementariedades funcionales reemplacen
oposiciones estructurales: el humanismo y la tradición fenomenológica contra
la tecno-ciencia y la mirada analítica; la participación contra la sombra de
un conocimiento experto y la burocracia estatal; el formalismo contra la
espontaneidad del desorden vernáculo. Vista bajo esta luz, la historia de la
vivienda social colectiva de la posguerra podría enmarcarse ya no en términos
de sus supuestos fracasos, sino como una experiencia fructífera, y a menudo, de
gran éxito.

Eventos

La tesis se basa en una cronología estructural de la arquitectura de posguerra

en la que se identifica una línea divisoria intelectual ubicada entre finales
de la década de 1950 y principios de la de 1960. Si bien es común entre las
periodizaciones del siglo 20 conmemorar el periodo 1968–1973 como un punto
de inflexión para la modernidad, los primeros años de la década de 1960 fueron
testigo de una serie de interrupciones discursivas e ideológicas significativas
para la arquitectura. En consecuencia, la tesis se organiza en dos secciones
de dos capítulos cada una. El primero se ocupa de los acontecimientos que
tuvieron lugar aproximadamente en el período entre 1945 y 1959, y la segunda
se extiende entre comienzos de la década de 1960 y principios de los 70. Cada
fase se caracteriza además por el estudio de un edificio emblemático de la
época: Unité d’habitation de Le Corbusier –iniciado durante el comienzo de
la reconstrucción en Francia y terminado en 1952–, y Byker Wall de Ralph
Erskine –un proyecto iniciado en 1969 y terminado, después de varios retrasos
y recortes, en 1982. En este esquema, la primera fase se caracteriza por ser
un período de transición en el que el principal marco de referencia, aunque
bajo sospecha, siguió siendo la ortodoxia del modernismo de entreguerras. Los
movimientos hacia la humanización del entorno, la apropiación de las ciencias
humanas e incluso el brutalismo, son esencialmente continuos con muchos de
los postulados de la ideología CIAM, especialmente sus versiones suavizadas
de la posguerra. La segunda fase, por el contrario, parece estar apuntando
resueltamente hacia la próxima crisis irreversible del modernismo. Como se
documenta en la tesis, la aparición del discurso del usuario como una nueva
figura activa a través del cual redefinir el sujeto de la arquitectura moderna es
una clara señal de que el inicio de los 60 constituye este momento decisivo.

La primera fase, entonces, debe definirse alrededor de la experiencia de

la década de 1950. Porque incluso si la guerra en sí terminó en 1945, sus
efectos se prolongaron en Europa y en todo el mundo durante años, no solo
en términos de inestabilidad geopolítica, sino también como racionamiento,
escasez, y una condición general de pobreza en muchos países. Bien entrada la
década de 1950 los efectos de la guerra de Corea (1950-1953) incidieron en las
condiciones industriales y económicas de las naciones europeas, imponiendo
limitaciones que demoraron lo que podría haber sido una recuperación más
rápida. Como lo relata Tony Judt, la situación de Gran Bretaña fue una de las
más difíciles, con “una hoguera de controles” celebrada en 1949, pero con un
racionamiento de alimentos que en realidad duró hasta 1954. Durante este
período, la escena arquitectónica vio la decadencia del CIAM y su ideología
urbana, y los intentos de un grupo de arquitectos jóvenes, inicialmente para
revivirla, y luego para desarrollar una forma diferente de asociación –más
suelta, más informal, menos burocrática– destinada a insuflar nueva vida a la

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arquitectura moderna. Por otra parte, la segunda mitad de la década de 1950

fueron años de construcción acelerada de vivienda social en toda Europa. Sin
embargo, las consecuencias sociales y las implicaciones de este proceso aún
no estaban maduras como para integrar plenamente la agenda latente de
heterogeneidad de la arquitectura. Incluso si la búsqueda de la heterogeneidad
tomó impulso como una preocupación de la posguerra temprana, su adopción
como un programa de acción totalmente consciente requeriría otra década
de maduración disciplinaria y cultural. El proyecto de Le Corbusier para la
Unité d’habitation en Marsella, en conjunto con sus estudios para El Modulor,
se destacan en este contexto como una investigación precoz sobre la relación
entre las nociones de heterogeneidad y del sujeto incorporado –aunque aún sea
demasiado temprano en este punto para hablar sobre el usuario.

La segunda fase comprende el periodo entre principios de los 60 y principios

de los 70. Este soporte temporal es conceptualmente heterogéneo dado que
la fecha temprana se inscribe principalmente en la dinámica de las culturas
arquitectónica y de vivienda, mientras que el principio de los 70 se considera la
fecha en que la política progresista y el crecimiento económico impulsado por el
estado de bienestar comenzaron a mostrar signos de desmoronamiento. Durante
esta fase, una evaluación empírica de la arquitectura de vivienda moderna llegó
a ser posible sobre la base de las realizaciones de los años anteriores. Una ola
emergente de crítica, específicamente a través de la obra de Jane Jacobs, Herbert
Gans, John Habraken, Martin Pawley, o Nicholas Taylor –pero también a
través de Henri Lefebvre y los Situacionistas– no sólo fue más radical y visceral
que todo lo que había ocurrido en los 50, sino que también comenzó a delinear
la base de lo que se convertiría, hacia el final de la década, en el discurso de
la postmodernidad. Esta segunda parte de la tesis se ocupa de desarrollos en
el campo de la arquitectura que tuvieron lugar empezando entre 1961 y 1963.
Uno de los desarrollos más destacados de este periodo es el crecimiento de
nuevas tradiciones académicas que buscan elaborar nuevas doctrinas teóricas
capaces de reemplazar el marco desgastado del funcionalismo. A pesar de sus
divergencias, estas investigaciones se caracterizaron por una mayor distancia al
modernismo de entreguerras y por lo tanto por un menor compromiso con sus
valores. Por otro lado, el principio de la década de 1960 produjo la introducción
explícita de la noción del usuario en el discurso arquitectónico. A medida que
la percepción del “fracaso de la vivienda” se hizo cada vez más extendida, las
acusaciones a arquitectos y planificadores debían ser apoyadas con un contra-
concepto que pudiese encarnar a la vez lo que había sido reprimido, y lo que
tuviese potencial para un nuevo tipo de reformismo social. Byker Wall, el
proyecto elegido para un análisis detallado en la segunda sección, es relevante
para este contexto debido a la apropiación perceptiva de sus diseñadores del
momento acumulado por esta figura del sujeto, y su astuta inversión de los
términos en que el problema se había establecido.2

Reconstrucción

A lo largo de su desarrollo la tesis procede permitiendo que el caso afirmativo

de hipótesis y conjeturas oriente la investigación. Esto puede ser contrastado

2.  Byker plantea un desafío a la periodización, no sólo porque el proceso de diseño y construcción se

extendió a lo largo de casi catorce años, sino porque fusionó impulsos teóricos que se originaron en
la década de 1950 con preocupaciones que surgieron a lo largo de los 60 y 70.

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 con otros tipos de organización discursiva que se movilizan en base a un modo
interrogativo. Incluso si esta distinción puede reducirse a una cuestión de estilo,
he considerado que el caso afirmativo fue adecuado para reflejar el estado de
los conocimientos existentes al inicio de la investigación y para exponer que
no hubo gran ingenuidad en la construcción del tema. En ese sentido, la
investigación avanzó asumiendo una validez general de sus hipótesis iniciales,
y evolucionó desafiando, refinando, calificando, especificando y procurando
pruebas para las mismas.

Una característica definitoria de la investigación es que trata de establecer

vínculos entre los artefactos discursivos y materiales, en lugar de centrarse
principalmente en uno u otro. Consistió, por un lado, en rastrillar publicaciones
con el fin de encontrar evidencias capaces de probar o desafiar sus conjeturas.
Por otro, requirió el análisis de proyectos paradigmáticos a través de la
producción de dibujos a escala y esquemas conceptuales, así como a través de
la observación de dibujos históricos y fotografías extraídas de publicaciones y
archivos.

Para llevar a cabo el análisis del discurso, la investigación tuvo que depender
fundamentalmente de publicaciones de arquitectura procedentes en su mayoría
de Europa y Estados Unidos. Esto no fue sólo una elección pragmática, sino
que se justifica por el hecho de que el objeto de la tesis pertenece a una red
de personas, instituciones, edificios y conceptos, cuya existencia fue posible en
gran parte debido a la expansión de los sistemas de comunicación dentro de
la disciplina. Siendo quizás el sistema privilegiado de comunicación dentro de
la arquitectura en el periodo de estudio, el material impreso, por tanto, más
que un medio para acceder a los hechos históricos, constituye en sí mismo
un hecho habilitante de la materia en cuestión. Una vez establecido esto, el
esfuerzo consistió en la construcción de conexiones lógicas e históricas entre
tres grupos de materiales: a) manifiestos, declaraciones, trabajos teóricos y
relatos históricos de arquitectura después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial en
Europa, b) artículos de libros y revistas que tratan específicamente con los
edificios elegidos, incluyendo declaraciones de sus autores, así como de críticos
e historiadores, y, c) manifiestos y valoraciones críticas publicados sobre la
teoría de la arquitectura contemporánea.3 A continuación se presenta un breve
comentario sobre cada uno de estos tipos de materiales.

a) Estas publicaciones fueron necesarias para destilar parámetros de contexto

sobre los que ha surgido cierto consenso acerca de las líneas estructurales
del desarrollo histórico de la arquitectura del siglo 20. Periodizaciones,
edificios emblemáticos, definiciones del canon y clasificaciones estilísticas
fueron apropiados para su posterior análisis y ajuste. Algunas cuestiones

3.  En los estudios históricos es importante la diferenciación entre fuentes primarias y secundarias.
Las primarias son las que llevan una relación directa con los hechos objeto de la investigación
–es decir: son contemporáneas con ellos o de lo contrario sin mediaciones–, mientras que las
secundarias se definen como aquellas que construyen sobre los reportes directos de los eventos. Sin
embargo, bajo ciertas condiciones, esta clasificación de las fuentes puede llegar a ser irrelevante.
Por ejemplo: si los eventos abordados son contemporáneos con su narración. Otra dificultad surge
si el tema de la investigación no puede ser explicado por la observación directa si no que depende de
inferencias interpretativas y/o esfuerzos de generalización. Debido a que el presente trabajo reúne
esas condiciones, las fuentes no se han clasificado en base a su fiabilidad o relación con la fuente,
sino de acuerdo al tipo de pruebas que presentan al argumento general.

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clave, como la selección de los casos de estudio o la caracterización de las

funciones desempeñadas por algunas de las prácticas retratadas, tuvieron que
ser sometidas a una comprobación minuciosa de los hechos. Por ejemplo, los
reportes de la historia de Team 10 han asignado un papel periférico a arquitectos
como Giancarlo De Carlo y Ralph Erskine, y si bien esto puede ser “verdadero”
si se mide por el peso de sus contribuciones a la herencia discursiva del grupo
(que, recordemos, fue editada cuidadosamente por su cronista principal, Alison
Smithson), la importancia de su contribución al discurso general sobre la
vivienda moderna se hace evidente cuando cuatro décadas más tarde, Robin
Hood Gardens fue programado para demolición, mientras Byker logró estatus
de protección (y financiación) como patrimonio inglés. En resumen, aunque
algunos de los grandes relatos de la arquitectura del siglo 20 han sido utilizados
de una manera bastante instrumental, tuvieron que someterse a triangulación,
y, en algunos casos, revisión, teniendo en cuenta los problemas específicos que
plantea la tesis.

b) Textos sobre la producción y la recepción crítica de los casos de estudio

escogidos. Puede ser sorprendente descubrir que a pesar de la abundante
bibliografía que existe sobre edificios paradigmáticos como la Unité
d’habitation de Le Corbusier y Byker Wall de Erskine, estos rara vez han sido
analizados con una agenda crítica que no esté determinada por su contexto
histórico inmediato. La bibliografía más notoria en este sentido consiste en
los estudios realizados por los científicos sociales y especialistas en vivienda
(se destacan estudios de Chombart de Lauwe sobre los primeros días de la
Unité y sus inquilinos, y la crítica política de Byker de Peter Malpass). Sin
embargo, los análisis propiamente arquitectónicos rara vez se han hecho desde
el punto de vista de interés para la presente tesis. Muy a menudo los estudios
de ambos edificios se han preocupado por las condiciones históricas y eventos
que condujeron a su existencia, según lo narrado por sus autores o por críticos
estrechamente involucrados con ellos. Como era de esperar, esto ha llevado a
la mayoría de las crónicas existentes a estar demasiado condicionadas por una
especie de partidismo que ya no es relevante para la polémica arquitectónica
contemporánea. Por el contrario, por ejemplo, aunque se conoce que hubo
intercambios entre figuras como Alexander y Erskine (su presencia conjunta en
reuniones de Team 10 está documentada), nunca se ha intentado el desarrollo
de un diálogo entre sus posiciones. En este sentido, la bibliografía sobre los
casos de estudio no sólo proporciona información específica acerca de sus
intenciones, condiciones, y recepción crítica, sino también pistas sobre vías
inexploradas de interpretación.

c) Textos sobre el estado de la cuestión en arquitectura, especialmente

aquellos que se han convertido en referencias estables para los debates sobre
la vivienda: tipología, expresión, organización colectiva y afecto –es decir: la
relación con el sujeto. Aunque elusivo, este es el campo de información que
proporciona el punto de entrada a la tesis, así como la justificación para llevar
a cabo su excavación histórica y conceptual. Los materiales estudiados aquí se
pueden clasificar además en dos grupos: los relacionados con el Zeitgeist de
la arquitectura, y los que se centran en la vivienda, la arquitectura social, y el
papel del usuario.4 El primer grupo sirvió para aportar pruebas y calificar el

4.   Aunque la idea de Zeigeist puede interpretarse en el sentido de una visión simplista del campo,
sigue siendo útil para hacer frente a la topografía de conocimientos y valores que se forman por

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 argumento acerca de la relevancia del proyecto de la heterogeneidad y otras
actividades de la arquitectura en su dimensión de disciplina autónoma; el
segundo grupo proporcionó coordenadas necesarias para evaluar las inflexiones
y articulaciones entre los discursos y las prácticas globales especificadas por sus
contextos geográficos, culturales, programáticos e históricos.5

Esta triple clasificación de las fuentes de la tesis fue formada de acuerdo

a exigencias específicas que plantea la investigación. En la práctica, el
conocimiento es una red continua de discursos que se interconectan ya sea de
forma explícita, por medio de citas, o implícitamente, a través de su apelación
a, o uso de, conceptos, eventos, estructuras o contextos similares. La evidencia
de la tesis fue construida mediante el trazado de líneas de continuidad dentro y
entre los tres dominios. La mayoría de estas continuidades se crearon de manera
directa, siguiendo líneas de referencias y citas; otras por el uso de conceptos y
contextos como puentes donde no se encontraron vínculos directos.

Complementando el análisis del discurso, la diagramación y la reconstrucción

de los dos casos de estudio más relevantes fue también una fuente clave de la
disertación. En el caso de la Unité, los dibujos fechados que muestran diversas
etapas del desarrollo del proyecto –obtenidos a través de la versión digital
del Archivo Le Corbusier–, jugaron un papel decisivo en la hipótesis de la
justificación de ciertos aspectos del proceso de diseño. Aunque las inferencias
hechas sobre la base de los dibujos son apoyadas por declaraciones publicadas
por los autores, algunas afirmaciones son conjeturales ya que no ha sido posible
encontrar testimonios que puedan confirmarlas. Los archivos de Byker, por el
contrario, aún no han sido clasificados, carecen de fechas coherentes, y son de
difícil acceso; una reconstrucción minuciosa de su proceso de diseño es, por lo
tanto, una tarea arqueológica que se encuentra más allá de las posibilidades
del presente trabajo. A pesar de estas limitaciones, una impresión general
del proceso de diseño, así como algunas comprobaciones considerables de
los hechos fueron posibles mediante la consulta del material disponible en el
Museo Victoria and Albert en Londres. Una reconstrucción detallada de su
geometría fue factible sobre esa base (véase el Anexo 1). Los dibujos producidos
contienen más información que cualquier publicación que se haya realizado
hasta el momento. En conjunto con las publicaciones, fotos históricas y visitas
al edificio (documentado con notas y fotografías originales), la información
obtenida de los archivos permitió la formulación de hipótesis sobre las fuerzas

las tendencias teóricas y estilísticas prevalecientes, en el contexto de una disciplina cada vez más
interconectada.

5.   Un desafío metodológico específico viene dado por el hecho de que la tesis se concibe como
una excavación de los orígenes de un problema contemporáneo dentro de la arquitectura; en ese
sentido, no puede reconocer una discontinuidad entre “entonces” y “ahora”. Por lo tanto, la falta de
perspectiva y la inmersión directa en el problema son dificultades inevitables. No es que el discurso
histórico carece de estos temas en general, pero las mediaciones interpuestas entre los autores y
sus objetos de estudio son a menudo abarcadas por métodos y marcos sedimentados a través de
los cuales la obra puede ser canalizada. Por el contrario, la construcción de un terreno en el que
organizar los hechos y marcos constitutivos de la presente investigación debe reconocer la influencia
de los prejuicios del autor. Sin embargo, esos prejuicios no son meramente personales; son la
expresión de una mentalidad generacional de la que el autor no es más que un ejemplo. En términos
metodológicos, esto implica llegar a un acuerdo con un grado de arbitrariedad en la configuración y
estructuración de la tesis, siempre y cuando el trabajo construya una lógica que aclare y justifique las
razones de tal configuración a priori.

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que debían ser llamadas para explicar el edificio.6 En este sentido, es una parte
integral de la obra y no puede separarse de su contenido.

Esta investigación podría haber recurrido a un tercer tipo de material, además

de textos y edificios, es decir, a la documentación gráfica donde “la gente” ha
sido el objeto de la representación, como en bocetos de los edificios, y también
a las representaciones científicas y dibujos técnicos. En ambos casos existe
una gran cantidad de materiales primarios que podrían haber sido explotados
para enriquecer la imagen del sujeto humano como fue conceptualizado en la
arquitectura. El caso de las representaciones técnicas ha sido el enfoque de una
serie de estudios y exposiciones recientes, y es objeto de cierta consideración
en el primer capítulo de la tesis. No obstante, la elección de enfocarse
principalmente en los edificios, en su materialidad y organización en lugar de
mirar sus representaciones (que se consideran instrumentales), sigue siendo
justificable en la medida que los edificios y su funcionamiento son nuestros
objetos primarios de interés.

Técnicas gráficas: lectura indiciaria + simulación performativa

El capítulo sobre Byker y el Anexo 1 dependen fundamentalmente del redibujo, la

diagramación y la exploración gráfica. Como se mencionó anteriormente, estas
herramientas son importantes para la construcción de los argumentos de la tesis,
sin embargo, ¿de qué manera contribuyen a la investigación? Tradicionalmente
se acepta que el conocimiento arquitectónico no se puede adquirir sin el dibujo
y la modelización como métodos para disciplinar la observación directa, pero
estos no son precisamente los sistemas gráficos que se desarrollan aquí. Hay un
interés en la construcción de un lenguaje visual en los edificios, específicamente
a través de la definición formal de sus superficies envolventes, ya que esta es la
manera más directa en que transmiten sus diversos mensajes. Pero el análisis
gráfico en la tesis recoge métodos que han sido apropiados por la arquitectura
de otras disciplinas, a saber, de la historia y la lingüística por un lado, y de la
ingeniería por otro. Se utilizan para proporcionar tipos complementarios de
información sobre el edificio.

El primer método es la lectura indiciaria. Comienza con un estudio y

reconstrucción del edificio, y se estructura en torno a tres conceptos
interrelacionados: la idea de la lectura cercana (close-reading), el paradigma
indiciario (o evidencial), y el de la genética. El objetivo de la lectura indiciaria
es revertir la cadena causal que llevó a una configuración material dada, con
el fin de identificar los eventos y fuerzas que le dieron su forma. Buscando
resolver controversias alrededor de obras de arte de autoría disputada y
para avanzar las técnicas de interpretación, la lectura cercana se ha utilizado
en la crítica literaria y en la investigación histórica. Carlo Ginzburg es
reconocido por haber aplicado estas ideas en la construcción de un método
histórico fundamentalmente atento a detalles considerados irrelevantes por
las tradiciones históricas ortodoxas.7 Influenciado por las investigaciones

6.  Sin embargo, algunos supuestos no pudieron ser comprobados y permanecen como posibilidades
en vez de hechos. Por ejemplo: no hay registros publicados que indiquen que la estructura en Byker
fue revestida con ladrillo de color puramente por razones arquitectónicas, o por el contrario, si es
que determinaciones económicas o prácticas jugaron un papel crucial en esta decisión.

7.   Ver “Indicios: Raíces de un paradigma de inferencias indiciales”, en Mitos, Emblemas, Indicios:

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 lingüísticas de Noam Chomsky, la semiología de Charles Sanders Peirce,
y la obra de Jacques Derrida, fue Peter Eisenman quien trajo estos métodos
a la arquitectura de manera más consistente. El enfoque de Eisenman en la
dimensión sintáctica de la organización arquitectónica como sitio privilegiado
de inscripción (véase el Capítulo 3) es sintomático de un intento de escapar de
lecturas y escrituras de arquitectura interesadas ​​principalmente en la figuración,
-en otras palabras, escapar de conclusiones establecidas sobre la base de la
interpretación semántica. Por otra parte, la reconstrucción de Byker presenta
lo que podría llamarse una dimensión proyectiva de análisis gráfico. Puesto
que no hay pruebas de que haya habido una comprensión genética consciente
del proyecto detrás de las decisiones de diseño en Byker, el intento de leer su
heterogeneidad formal en términos de un proceso de diferenciación celular se
asume como una conceptualización original. Aquí, los “hechos” arquitectónicos
se extrapolan en “propensiones”: una dimensión virtual del edificio.

Desarrollando la idea de lo virtual, el segundo método de investigación gráfica

utilizado en la tesis (ver Anexo 1) se basa en la simulación performativa. Esta
no pretende descubrir intenciones inscritas o eventos pasados, sino actualizar
el potencial performativo de un edificio. En contextos como el pronóstico
del clima, la estrategia militar, y la ingeniería industrial y militar, en los que
el rendimiento de un artefacto debe ser maximizado, donde los márgenes de
error y coeficientes de seguridad deben ser estrictamente controlados, y debe
asegurarse la previsibilidad del sistema, la simulación ha sido una herramienta
de diseño insustituible durante por lo menos 70 años. Dada la complejidad de
los procesos involucrados en esos campos, incluso los esfuerzos de planificación
más cuidadosos pueden ser insuficientes para asegurar que el comportamiento
de un sistema permanezca dentro de los márgenes deseados. Aunque la
simulación física había ya permeado la arquitectura y la ingeniería –como en
pruebas de túnel de viento en rascacielos–, hasta la difusión de la computación
digital en la década de 1980 y principios de 1990, incluso una simulación básica
de performance solía requerir el despliegue de tecnologías fuera del alcance
de la mayoría de las aplicaciones civiles y comerciales. Durante la década de
1990, la computación digital dio un salto que permitió a un número creciente
de usuarios aplicar esas técnicas dentro de sus entornos de diseño.8 Pero su
impulso para utilizarlas ya no se derivó de un interés en aumentar la eficiencia
de los edificios. La simulación se convirtió en una herramienta para explorar
ecosistemas formales de gran complejidad geométrica. Si la posibilidad de
diseñar en un contexto dinámico simulado dio lugar, en sus inicios, a una nueva
genealogía de edificios de superficie curva variable, la simulación performativa
ha ampliado recientemente sus potencialidades mediante la incorporación de
una gama más amplia de temas, entre ellos el comportamiento del usuario, la
gestión de la energía, el agua, y el aire, el control de ruido, la incidencia solar y
la predicción de ganancia de calor, el comportamiento estructural, etc. Ese es el
contexto, en que los diagramas incluidos en el Anexo 1 actualizan visualmente
comportamientos sociales habilitados por el edificio: potencias aún no han sido
reconocidos ni medidas formalmente.9 Este esfuerzo se basa en la suposición

Morfología e historia (Barcelona: Gedisa, 1994). Originalmente publicado en 1986.

8.  La referencia canónica es: Greg Lynn, Animate Form (Nueva York: Princeton Architectural Press,
1998).

9.  No he basado mi trabajo directamente sobre el suyo, pero quiero reconocer que los diagramas

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de que nuevas formas arquitectónicas requieren condiciones previas originales

para ser creadas. La expectativa es que estas simulaciones puedan construir el
potencial para este tipo de intervenciones futuras en Byker y más allá.

El argumento en pos de la heterogeneidad

Los argumentos de la tesis comenzaron a tomar forma en 2011. Su punto de

partida fue una intuición sobre la renovada importancia de la relación entre
los conceptos de heterogeneidad y diferenciación, y las agendas sociales en
la arquitectura. Durante el transcurso de la investigación, esta intuición fue
confirmada por el descubrimiento de numerosas declaraciones que tratan
específicamente con ella, muchas de las cuales fueron publicadas mientras
la tesis se estaba escribiendo. Además, fue posible realizar un seguimiento
de su aparición histórica en la arquitectura, en los debates sobre el diseño
de organizaciones colectivas (complejos de vivienda y urbanos) que fueron
estimulados por los esfuerzos de reconstrucción después de la Segunda Guerra
Mundial.

Aunque la preocupación por la elaboración de una nueva forma de organización

cohesiva de lo colectivo –que no reprimiera la expresión de sus elementos
individuales– se generalizó después de los excesos militares y políticos de la
primera mitad del siglo 20, fue el arquitecto holandés Aldo van Eyck quien dio
a esta búsqueda su forma más articulada:

“What has right-size is at the same time both large and small,
few and many, near and far, simple and complex, open and
closed, will furthermore always be both part and whole and
embrace both unity and diversity. No, as conflicting polarities
of false alternatives, these abstract antonyms all carry the
same evil: loss of identity and its attribute, monotony.”10

“Planning on whatever scale should provide a framework -to set

the stage as it were- for the twin phenomenon of the individual
and the collective without resorting to arbitrary accentuation
of either one at the expense of the other, i.e. without warping
the meaning of either, since no basic twinphenomenon can be
split into incompatible polarities without the halves forfeiting
whatever they stand for. This points towards the necessity
of reconciling the idea of unity with the idea of diversity in
architectural terms or, more precisely, to achieve the one by
means of the other. It’s an old forgotten truth that diversity is
only attainable through unity, unity only attainable through
diversity. There are of course many ways of approaching this
objective. The architectural reciprocity, unity-diversity and
part-whole (closely linked twinphenomenon) must cover the
human reciprocity individual-collective.”11

analíticos de Byker están relacionados de cierta manera a los métodos de investigación espacial
desarrollados por el Space Syntax Laboratory de Bill Hillier. Ver Anexo 1.

10. Cita de Aldo van Eyck en: Alison Smithson (ed.), Team 10 Primer 1953-1962 (Londres, 1965): 5.

11. Cita de Aldo van Eyck en: Team 10 Primer 1953-1962 - Architectural Design n. 12 (1962): 600-

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 Las palabras de Van Eyck han recuperado una sorprendente relevancia, ya
que las sociedades de todo el hemisferio occidental se enfrentan a la necesidad
de redefinir sus auto-representaciones en el contexto de los movimientos
migratorios, el reto de la multiculturalidad, y las demandas de integración
social de comienzos del siglo 21. La disciplina arquitectónica ha pasado a
internalizar estas condiciones, desarrollando instrumentos teóricos renovados.
En un ensayo publicado en 1999, el teórico norteamericano Robert Somol
afirmó que “la historia de la producción arquitectónica a lo largo de los últimos
cuarenta años se puede caracterizar en términos generales como el deseo de
establecer una arquitectura a la vez autónoma y heterogénea en contraste con
la construcción anónima y homogénea asociada con la retórica de entreguerras
y la experiencia de posguerra del movimiento moderno. Esta búsqueda de
autonomía y heterogeneidad –con su antinomia fundamental en la convocatoria
de la identidad y la multiplicidad– ha tomado varias formas en este periodo,
una de las cuales es una lectura insistentemente distorsionada o repetición
de las vanguardias modernistas.”12 Del mismo modo, la transformación
de los procesos de diseño y sensibilidades efectuados por la explosión del
medio digital reanimó el interés en la idea del espacio mismo como el locus
de la heterogeneidad. En ese sentido, las investigaciones recientes se han
centrado en el pasaje de un espacio cartesiano abstracto, es decir, el espacio
homogéneo que fue la base de la teoría de la perspectiva y, por tanto, de la
forma arquitectónica del Renacimiento, a un espacio diferenciado de efectos,
mucho más afín a los modelos energéticos que habían sido propuestos por
Reyner Banham, y más tarde teorizados por Stan Allen y Sanford Kwinter. Esta
evolución recibió una atención detallada en un compendio publicado en 2009.13
Además, un reciente artículo del historiador del arte Branko Mitrović sobre el
problema de la homogeneidad del espacio en la obra de Leon Battista Alberti
desató una serie de ejercicios académicos realizados por Peter Eisenman en
la Universidad de Yale (2013) bajo el título Homogenous and Heterogeneous
Space: an evolution, 1450-1750.14 La relación entre modos digitales de
producción y la heterogeneidad en la arquitectura también ha sido explorada
por Lars Spuybroek y Mario Carpo en sus últimos libros, The Architecture of
Variation (2009) y The Alphabet and the Algorithm (2011). En este último,
Carpo propone que los modos digitales de producción han liberado el potencial
de una práctica de diseño no estándar que puede revocar “principios técnicos,
económicos, sociales y visuales que han caracterizado la era mecánica durante
la mayor parte de los últimos cinco siglos”.15

Pero el tema está lejos de ser una preocupación exclusivamente académica. Si

bien las referencias citadas podrían sugerir lo contrario, ciertas experiencias en

604.

12. Ver: “Dummy Text, or the Diagrammatic Basis of Contemporary Architecture”. Traducción del
autor, itálicas del original. Publicado en Peter Eisenman, Diagram Diaries (Nueva York: Universe
Publishing, 1999).

13. Ver: Michael Hensel, Christopher Hight y Achim Menges (eds.), Space Reader: Heterogeneous
Space in Architecture (Chicehster: Wiley, 2009).

14. Ver: Branko Mitrović, “Leon Battista Alberti and the Homogeneity of Space”, Journal of the
Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 63, No. 4 (Dic., 2004): 424-439.

15. Mario Carpo, The Alphabet and the Algorithm (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011): 105.
Traducción e itálicas del autor.

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el campo de la vivienda social en la última década demuestran que los dilemas

planteados hace sesenta años por Van Eyck siguen teniendo vigencia dentro
de la esfera pública. Refiriéndose a los proyectos de vivienda experimental
construidos en Chile por Elemental, Alejandro Aravena dio a este problema una
formulación clara en una entrevista realizada en 2010: “El uniforme, que hasta
ahora tenía una cuestión abiertamente negativa -esta cuestión de la monotonía
o la incapacidad de expresar la individualidad- tenía el efecto equivalente
al uniforme del colegio, que es que revela menos desigualdades odiosas
entre vecinos: tiene una dimensión de lo igualador positivo que no era evidente
cuando partimos con el proyecto. No es un debate cerrado. No tenemos claro
cuando abrir al proceso de intervención y de expresión individual en el espacio
público es una virtud o cuando la uniformidad es un valor por esta cuestión
igualadora de no revelar quién es más capaz que otros. Y que los procesos de
diferenciación normales ocurran puertas adentro: en el uso, en la distribución
de espacios y no necesariamente como yo muestro que soy más capaz que mi
vecino.”16

El instrumento17

Los arquitectos siempre realizan sus tareas en nombre de otros –esto es cierto
incluso cuando diseñan para sí mismos, ya que no hay tal cosa como un ser
totalmente autónomo respecto del colectivo. Sin embargo, la naturaleza de esos
otros y las acciones de diseño que se llevan a cabo en su nombre han sido fuente
de polémica permanente. Como se mencionó anteriormente, la introducción
del concepto del usuario en el discurso arquitectónico tuvo lugar a principios
de la década de 1960 como un esfuerzo para traer una figura diferente a
la del cliente tradicional a la dinámica del diseño de interés público. Pero a
medida que el impulso utópico que movilizó a esos esfuerzos democratizadores
menguó hacia finales de la década de 1970, las prácticas relacionadas con la
defensa del usuario, la participación, y la investigación centrada en el usuario
se aislaron cada vez más, convirtiéndose casi en una especialización. Lo que
es más, el barniz progresista que había distinguido esas prácticas se perdió
parcialmente al ser apropiadas por el populismo de derecha, como fue el caso
especialmente en Gran Bretaña. Durante casi dos décadas, la idea de uso en la
práctica arquitectónica sobrevivió ya sea como un interés encubierto, o como
una preocupación periférica sin mucho impacto en los debates principales de
la disciplina. Desde principios de la década de 2000, esta situación comenzó a
cambiar. La publicación del volumen Use Matters: an alternative history of
architecture (2013)18 señala un renovado interés en el tema del usuario (cuenta

16. Ver: Entrevista a Alejandro Aravena II, por Felipe De Ferrari M. y Diego Grass P. Diciembre,
2010. www.onarchitecture.com Itálicas del autor.

17.  En esta tesis el usuario designa a quienes establecen una relación experiencial habitual con un
edificio o espacio en el que viven, trabajan o realizan actividades regularmente. Esta definición
excluye deliberadamente a los que “usan” el edificio de maneras no experienciales o indirectas, tales
como para ganarse la vida (diseño, construcción, mantenimiento o administración), o aquellos que
disfrutan (o sufren) su presencia como parte de un paisaje urbano. En la práctica, el significado del
término tiende a ser aún más limitado ya que a menudo se centra en los usuarios desempoderados,
o a los que les quedan pocas opciones para decidir si someterse a la experiencia de un edificio o bajo
qué condiciones hacerlo.

18.  Ver: Kenny Cupers (ed.), Use Matters: an alternative history of architecture (Nueva York:

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 con ensayos de diecisiete autores diferentes), aunque ahora los partidismos que
habían animado las discusiones anteriores se han suavizado a favor de enfoques
más desapasionados y post-utópicos. Como nos advierte Kenny Cupers en la
introducción al libro, el escenario contemporáneo de investigación y práctica
inspirado en el uso no debe ser entendido en términos de una vieja “agenda
que socava la autonomía de la arquitectura o sus potencialidades formales...
[sino acerca de] cómo el uso ha sido un motor fundamental de la invención
arquitectónica”. De hecho, continúa Cupers, “desde el resurgimiento del
activismo y el compromiso social en la arquitectura hasta el desarrollo de
nuevos espacios de interacción utilizando las últimas tecnologías, el interés
por la agencia del usuario a través de muchas disciplinas creativas hoy ofrece
nuevas promesas para el papel social del diseño”. 19

La advertencia de Cupers resuena en el contexto de América Latina, donde

prácticas activistas han florecido al mismo tiempo (o luego de) que una serie de
marcos y aparatos institucionales fueran puestos en marcha para favorecer la
proliferación de este tipo de prácticas. Si bien esto no necesariamente incide en
los méritos de esas prácticas, debe servir para diferenciarlas de las posturas de
oposición anteriores que operaban en ausencia de dichos marcos, y que tal vez
deban ser reconocidas por haber logrado su institucionalización primigenia.
Parece como si, hoy en día, la alineación de las fuerzas del uso con las que
pertenecen a las formas tradicionales de la práctica arquitectónica fuese una
condición necesaria, no ya para cumplir un programa de emancipación política,
sino, simplemente, para hacer que las cosas ocurran. Es probablemente en este
marco en el que debiera insertarse el trabajo de Elemental Chile como un caso
ejemplar.20

Aunque es menos específico en términos de su investigación de la cuestión

del uso en el sentido mencionado anteriormente, un ejemplo más del interés
revitalizado en temas de vivienda y la construcción del sujeto en América Latina
es la reciente publicación del libro de Jorge Francisco Liernur y Anahí Ballent,
La Casa y la Multitud (2014). Esta extensa historización de la evolución de
las prácticas, políticas y teorías de vivienda en Argentina durante el siglo 20
es pertinente aquí porque apunta principalmente a la comprensión del sujeto
político de la vivienda colectiva. Al emplear la noción de la multitud en su título,
el libro revela su inclinación hacia una comprensión posfordista del colectivo que
se alinea con el cambio identificado en el Capítulo 4 de la tesis. Su publicación
es testigo de la continua relevancia social de la vivienda como un proyecto que

Routledge, 2013). La lista de publicaciones que reimpulsa la polémica sobre el uso sigue creciendo.
Ver también: Stephen Grabow y Kent Spreckelmeyer, The Architecture of Use. Aesthetic and
Function in Architectural Design (Nueva York: Routledge, 2015).

19.  Ibid, 1. Traducción del autor.

20. De hecho, esto es lo más difícil de abordar discursivamente, no sólo para Elemental sino
para cualquier práctica que trabaja bajo un escrutinio público intenso. Porque si la alineación de
las fuerzas institucionales y de diseño, y las fuerzas del uso fueron alguna vez vistas como una
contradicción política, hoy en día la batalla parece estar desarrollándose principalmente a nivel
cultural y económico, no político. En cualquier caso, esto no significa que en tales batallas el
arquitecto no esté jugando sus cartas para empujar (conscientemente o no) no sólo “en nombre” de
un dado “otro”, sino también “para imponer” su concepción de ese “otro”. Pero esto no parece ser
una conversación que se pueda tener en público. La idea de la excusa se expondrá en las conclusiones
para explicar esta aporía.

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no se puede separar de una concepción determinada de lo político.21

Marco teórico: arquitectura y comportamiento

Con el fin de dar cuenta de las acciones que la arquitectura ha llevado a cabo
en nombre de sus usuarios, su relación con el comportamiento humano se
ha identificado como el sitio teórico de la tesis. La elección de este problema
como el lente a través del cual estudiar el tema del diseño de la vivienda se
deriva del reconocimiento de que los arquitectos involucrados en él dieron
importancia primordial a los efectos sociales y psicológicos que la vivienda
tuvo en sus habitantes, y que consideraban estos efectos como criterio legítimo
según el cual medir el éxito de su trabajo. Sin embargo, este interés focalizado
en un aspecto específico de la agencia de los edificios –su capacidad para dar
forma a los usuarios al afectar su comportamiento– no implica una retirada
de la atención en la práctica proyectiva. Mientras que un enfoque sociológico
del tema privilegiaría el foco en la realidad de los edificios, la metodología
aquí propuesta pretende aislar a los edificios de la red de interacciones que se
producen después de que inician su vida como estructuras sociales. Más bien,
el enfoque se mantendrá en el nivel de predicción, de intencionalidad, y de los
procesos de toma de decisiones donde las interacciones sociales están presentes
a través de un sistema de representaciones.

En lo que sigue, el sitio teórico de la tesis se esquematiza como una gruesa

capa de teorías y opiniones interrelacionadas que colectivamente han dado
forma a su propio desarrollo desde mediados del siglo 20. Al sondearse este
paisaje, su naturaleza controvertida se revela inmediatamente por el hecho de
que varias disciplinas lo reclaman como propio. Teorías del sujeto humano se
encuentran en la base de la sociología, la psicología, la antropología, la ciencia
política, así como en ciertas ramas de la filosofía, la geografía y la economía,
y, por supuesto, la arquitectura. Pero, como la arquitectura en sí misma no
es una ciencia, históricamente ha requerido tomar prestados principios y
definiciones de las disciplinas anteriores. El resultado de esas asociaciones ha
sido una experiencia histórica fructífera para la arquitectura, si se mide por
el número de investigaciones, o por la enorme diversidad que inyectó en la
disciplina. Al mismo tiempo, el enlace con las ciencias humanas ha constituido
uno de sus mayores traumas. Este ha significado una confrontación de fuerzas
institucionales y cognitivas donde la arquitectura a menudo dio la impresión
de estar a punto de perder su equilibrio. Ante este panorama, la tesis no afirma
haber construido una posición totalmente consistente e independiente, sino
que se limita a armar un cuadro de las diversas fuerzas intelectuales que han
influido en su escritura, estableciendo conexiones históricas y conceptuales
entre ellas. Se verá que tales ideas son sólo parcialmente sincrónicas con las
de los materiales históricos bajo escrutinio. Pero el diacronismo y la pluralidad
de este enfoque se justifican, precisamente, por la necesidad de extraer los
materiales de su contexto histórico inmediato; el reto consiste, después de todo,
en entender cómo pueden ser útiles para dilucidar cuestiones apremiantes en la
práctica arquitectónica contemporánea.

21. El libro no hace explícita su asociación con la terminología de Paolo Virno o de Michael Hard
y Antonio Negri, pero su deuda con esos autores fue confirmada por J.F. Liernur en un correo
electrónico al autor, el 14 de enero de 2015.

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 Existen varios compendios y resúmenes que podrían contribuir a la elaboración
de una reseña histórica de la relación de la arquitectura y el comportamiento;
un reporte de los primeros debería incluir People and Buildings de Robert
Gutman (1972), y Design in Architecture de Geoffrey Broadbent (1973); un
estudio histórico algo más reciente es el ensayo “Architecture Invents New
People” del profesor Russell Ellis.22 El macro-campo llamado Environmental
Design (Diseño Ambiental, ED por sus siglas en inglés) debe ser acreditado
por haber generar un conjunto de trabajos consistentes sobre el tema. Iniciado
por William Wurster en la Universidad de Berkeley en California en la década
de 1950, el Environmental Design se convirtió en un caldo de cultivo para
numerosas líneas de investigación, entre ellas la del Center for Environmental
Structure (Centro de Estructura Ambiental), fundado por Christopher
Alexander en 1967, y la Environmental Design Research Assocation (Asociación
de Investigación de Diseño Ambiental) de Henry Sanoff, fundada en 1968 e
instalada posteriormente en la Universidad de Carolina del Norte.23 El ED se
centró inicialmente en la aplicación de métodos y conocimientos originados
en las ciencias humanas, y pasó a desarrollar una cantidad significativa de
investigación sobre el tema, considerando a la arquitectura como uno de sus
sub-campos, en conjunción con la planificación urbana, el diseño del paisaje
y el diseño de interiores. Un panorama útil proveniente del campo del ED
es Creating Architectural Theory. The Role of the Behavioral Sciences in
Environmental Design de Jon Lang (1987). El libro de Lang se ubica como
uno de los exámenes analíticos más completos de la herencia de la arquitectura
moderna en su relación con el tema, procurando una síntesis crítica de la teoría y
el conocimiento empírico desarrollado en las ciencias humanas en relación con
el entorno físico durante las décadas de los 60 y 70. Argumenta en contra de las
generalizaciones, homogeneizaciones, e idealizaciones del diseño moderno, y
critica sus corrientes positivistas y posibilistas. En su lugar, introduce enfoques
simbólicos y probabilísticos como los marcos más confiables para entender
la naturaleza de las relaciones entre el ser humano y su entorno. A pesar de
su amplitud, la perspectiva de Lang sufre de limitaciones que se derivan de
la posición cientificista del ED respecto de la naturaleza de las profesiones de
diseño, que tienden a conducir a concepciones despolitizadas y des-estetizadas
de la práctica. Si bien promueve la relevancia del tema, la tendencia del ED
es también evitar la articulación real del análisis empírico objetivo con sus
dimensiones subjetivas necesarias, que se limitan a la condición de “objeto
de estudio”, pero sólo tematizadas ligeramente en la constitución del acto
de estudiar. Es por esta razón que un mapeo del campo teórico de la tesis se
amplifica mirando los aportes realizados por los arquitectos directamente
relacionados con la política mainstream y la práctica de vanguardia. Aunque
a veces esas contribuciones se formulan de manera menos sistemática,
proporcionan una vista de la dinámica interna de la práctica sin la cual no es
posible modelar la dinámica de la arquitectura.

Estas notas se basan en la idea de que el diseño arquitectónico ha implicado

siempre cierto grado o forma de acción deliberada, incluso en sus encarnaciones

22.  En Russell Ellis y Dana Cuff (eds.) Architect’s People (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).

23. Ver: An Architektur, “On Consensus, Equality, Experts, and Good Design. An interview with
Roberta Feldman and Henry Sanoff”, en An Architektur. Produktion und Gebrauch gebauter
Umwelt No. 21 (9/2008): 4-15.

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menos utilitarias. Como consecuencia, ha necesitado depender regularmente

de axiomas o supuestos sobre las relaciones causales que podrían mejorar sus
posibilidades de éxito en la consecución de dichos fines, aunque asciendan a algo
tan vago como “deleitar”. De hecho, esos axiomas y supuestos han constituido
el problema central de la teoría de arquitectura desde el Renacimiento, y el
placer en sí ha sido la búsqueda menos controvertida de la disciplina, en la
medida en que no se superpone con las responsabilidades de otras profesiones,
como la ciencia (utilidad) o ingeniería (solidez).

Con el auge del funcionalismo moderno, sin embargo, pareció que durante varias
décadas la utilidad debía ser elevada a la posición más alta dentro de la escala
de preocupaciones de la arquitectura. Sin importar los orígenes lejanos de las
filosofías utilitarias y su relación con la estética, que se sabe ha existido durante
siglos, el discurso de la función adquirió estatus mítico dentro de la vanguardia
modernista, sobre todo entre los movimientos radicales que se desarrollaron en
Alemania y Suiza, y también en algunos de los postulados de sus expresiones
humanistas, incluyendo la obra de Le Corbusier. Influenciado por el positivismo
del siglo 19, el funcionalismo y la neue sachlichtkeit se basaron en una teoría
determinista que combinó el cambio social y la forma arquitectónica en forma
lineal. A pesar de su personalidad multifacética y resbaladiza, en la cresta de su
época heroica Le Corbusier podía afirmar que la arquitectura era tan poderosa
como para evitar una revolución. Durante este período, que se extiende
aproximadamente entre 1920 y 1960, el conductismo fue la teoría psicológica
subyacente más prominente del sujeto humano, adoptada, conscientemente
o no, por la rama dominante de la arquitectura moderna.24 Involucraba una
concepción organicista del hombre según lo determinaba su entorno, de donde
derivaban sus principios ergonómicos, antropométricos y topológicos. Incluso
si el conductismo, en su forma más fuerte, ha sido reemplazado por teorías
más sofisticadas, es importante mencionarlo aquí no sólo para proporcionar
un contexto a los desarrollos más recientes, sino porque, como se verá, todavía
tiene alguna ascendencia significativa sobre el estado actual del debate en
arquitectura.

Acompañado por el dramático desarrollo de posiciones humanistas en

disciplinas emergentes como la antropología y la psicología social, el
conductismo caería en descrédito después de la década de 1950. Tanto la
experiencia práctica acumulada en la década que siguió a la guerra, como los
avances correspondientes en la sociología y la psicología social dejaron claro
que los individuos y colectivos estaban dotados de una complejidad interna que
les permitía desarrollar representaciones divergentes de estímulos externos, y
por lo tanto llegar a ser impredecibles en el contexto de una situación dada.
Algunos de los textos más importantes de la época posterior a la guerra,
incluyendo los de Sigfried Giedion, el joven Reyner Banham, o las declaraciones
programáticas de Team 10, desde Statement Against Rationalism de Aldo
Van Eyck (1948) hasta The Man in the Street de Shadrach Woods (1975), dan
testimonio de este cambio a un sujeto post-mecanicista y psico-antropológico,
dotado de valores, deseos, y libre albedrío. Una variante teórica fundamental
de esta concepción del sujeto era la creencia en que los arquitectos necesitaban

24. Pero no fue la única. En la década de 1940, por ejemplo, Colin Rowe ya había traído ideas de la
psicología de la Gestalt y la teoría de la empatía a la arquitectura desde el campo de la historia del
arte.

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 ampliar su ámbito de acción más allá del diseño y construcción de edificios.
Ya que, si no se podía esperar que los sujetos y las comunidades respondieran
de forma lineal a los estímulos de la forma física, entonces, al menos, parte de
la incertidumbre sobre sus efectos podía ser eliminada por los arquitectos si
éstos asumieran nuevas responsabilidades como educadores y líderes sociales,
dedicados de forma activa a construir las condiciones de recepción de su
trabajo. Dentro del Team 10, esta posición fue ejemplificada con más fuerza por
Ralph Erskine y Giancarlo De Carlo. Dando a entender que no podía confiarse a
la forma física la responsabilidad íntegra por el desempeño de la arquitectura,
subrayaron la mediación política y discursiva del diseñador como un factor
integral para una ingeniería exitosa de los efectos socio-arquitectónicos
(un argumento especialmente adaptado a los contextos de vulnerabilidad o
desempoderamiento). La concepción amplificada de la arquitectura de Erskine
y De Carlo ha sido reevaluada durante la última década, y ocupa un lugar
importante en la teoría contemporánea.

Aunque el humanismo de la posguerra tuvo éxito en fomentar el trabajo de Team

10 hasta la década de 1980, su influencia ya había comenzado a disminuir a
mediados de los 60. Las nuevas generaciones de arquitectos que comenzaron su
educación después del final de la Segunda Guerra Mundial trajeron consigo una
necesidad de representaciones disciplinarias libres de la carga del modernismo
de entreguerras; esta carga incluía el humanismo del Team 10, que llegó a ser
considerado por muchos como una extensión azucarada del funcionalismo.25
Una nueva concepción de la arquitectura y su relación con el sujeto humano
surgió con la obra de Aldo Rossi y Peter Eisenman, ambos inscritos, a su
manera, en el pensamiento estructuralista.26 El trabajo de estos arquitectos es
emblemático de un distanciamiento radical del razonamiento empírico. Sus
contribuciones postularon la existencia de estructuras trascendentales que
preceden y condicionan al sujeto, el idioma en el caso de Eisenman, y el tipo,
la memoria colectiva y la ciudad, en Rossi. Para que la arquitectura ejerza una
influencia sobre sus usuarios, su enfoque tenía que pasar de lo experimental a
lo conceptual y lo crítico. El sujeto estructuralista sólo podía ser interpelado
al desplazar o apelar a sus representaciones del mundo –el resto fluiría desde
allí. La arquitectura se suponía que actuaba principalmente sobre los niveles
de la memoria y la conciencia. Pero este refugio en la esfera del discurso crítico
pronto demostró ser demasiado restrictivo en su capacidad de interactuar con

25. Aunque el estructuralismo ha sido definido por muchos autores como esencialmente opuesto
al humanismo, ciertas desviaciones de esta clara distinción son notables, el ejemplo siendo la
confluencia de preocupaciones humanistas con un interés por la obra de Lévi-Strauss de Aldo van
Eyck.

26. La adscripción de Rossi al estructuralismo nunca fue del todo explícita. Sin embargo, como
señala Ignasi de Solà Morales, “La petición de un conocimiento autónomo de la arquitectura
basada en el cuerpo teórico que le ha sido propio –la tratadística y la manualística– y la definición
de los datos morfológicos y tipológicos como las referencias esenciales para el análisis de las obras
arquitectónicas y urbanísticas, constituyen una inteligente transposición de las preocupaciones del
pensamiento estructuralista al territorio de la arquitectura. No sólo las referencias a Claude Lévi-
Strauss o a Roman Jakobson son indicios claros de qué tipo de soporte hay detrás de las teorías
rossianas sino que también su práctica como arquitecto demostrará cuáles son sus verdaderos
intereses.” Ver: Ignasi de Solà Morales, “De la autonomía a lo intempestivo”, en Diferencias.
Topografía de la arquitectura contemporánea. (Barcelona: Editorial Gustavo Gili, 1998): 88-89.
Publicado originalmente en 1995.  

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individuos específicos, y en su abandono de la importancia de las condiciones

materiales de la práctica.

Publicado en 1978, Delirious New York de Rem Koolhaas puede considerarse

como un intento de salir de este callejón sin salida. Nutrido en el surrealismo, el
situacionismo, el constructivismo, y los movimientos vanguardistas italianos de
finales de los 60, Koolhaas no fue ajeno a la idea de un sujeto sobre-determinado
por fuerzas inconscientes. Consciente de las limitaciones de un discurso crítico
desdeñoso de la modernidad trató de demostrar que, a pesar de las acusaciones
en su contra, la modernidad había tenido éxito en la ciudad de Nueva York.
Este éxito, por supuesto, no era el previsto por la vanguardia europea, pero era
inconfundiblemente moderno. Koolhaas postulaba que la cultura metropolitana
de principios del siglo 20 había ofrecido a la arquitectura moderna una manera
de lograr sus planes megalómanos de transformar la ciudad capitalista, con la
condición de que aceptara un estado de esquizofrenia post-utópico. Delirious
New York revisita la historia de la arquitectura en Manhattan del siglo 20,
sosteniendo que sus éxitos habían llegado a través de desvincular los medios (la
construcción de la ciudad capitalista) y los fines (la creación de una hedonista
cultura de congestión), dado que cualquier relación discursiva explícita entre
ellos habría condenado el programa del manhattanismo al fracaso. Al igual
que en la Realpolitik, la mera enunciación de los verdaderos objetivos habría
conspirado contra su realización. Pero si la realidad de la relación entre la
arquitectura y sus efectos de comportamiento habría de permanecer de alguna
manera en un nivel oculto o inconsciente, también era imposible renunciar del
todo a ella, como concederá cualquier arquitecto. Por lo tanto, la solución de
Koolhaas fue que su reconstrucción debía tener lugar en el espacio de la ficción
–de allí el título de la última sección del libro, Fictional Conclusion. Pero la
innegable productividad del método crítico-paranoico de Koolhaas (es decir:
crear ficciones que luego de alguna manera se vuelven realidad) también
tenía limitaciones. En primer lugar, en cuanto a su política: si la ficción se
afirma como tal, entonces, ¿cuáles son sus límites? ¿Qué sucede después de
que se termina? y, ¿quién es el autor de la ficción?; si no se indica, entonces su
política sólo puede ser descrita como cínica y manipuladora. En segundo lugar,
la ficción es enteramente diferente de la teoría: no necesita ser demostrada
sino solo narrada o imaginada. Si, siguiendo a Koolhaas, el discurso de la
arquitectura sólo puede ser efectivo como ficción, ¿significa esto que una teoría
de la arquitectura y el comportamiento, en el sentido científico, es imposible?
Koolhaas respondería que es posible, pero irrelevante ante sus capacidades
transformadoras limitadas.27

Durante la última década surgieron nuevas contribuciones al problema de la

relación entre la arquitectura y el comportamiento, colocando las cuestiones
de estilo y desarrollo autónomo en el contexto de la teoría social. Entre
las más influyentes está el libro de Patrik Schumacher The Autopoiesis of

27. La respuesta sería que una teoría de la relación entre la arquitectura y el comportamiento humano
es posible tanto en principio –al igual que cualquier fenómeno o proceso es, en principio, susceptible
a descripción y modelización– y como resultado de los intentos históricos que dicen representarla;
pero que, en la práctica, su utilidad y aplicabilidad dependen en gran medida de contingencia local
y son, por lo tanto, limitadas en su alcance y valor. La prueba de esto sería que, incluso un recuento
amplio de arquitectura como la de Koolhaas, en una cultura altamente globalizada y ecuménica, sólo
es válido en el contexto de sitios metropolitanos específicos.

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 Architecture (dos volúmenes, 2011). Construyendo sobre la base del trabajo
de los biólogos chilenos Francisco Varela y Humberto Maturana, y sobre la
teoría funcionalista del sociólogo alemán Niklas Luhmann, Schumacher
afirma una definición de arquitectura como una disciplina autónoma. Sin
embargo, se basa en el concepto de autopoiesis, lo que significa un giro
respecto de entendimientos anteriores de autonomía. La autonomía radical
que infiltró el discurso del movimiento neo-racionalista italiano de la década
de 1970, por ejemplo, se basaba en una política dialéctica y oposicional. La
autonomía de Peter Eisenman de los años 60 y 70 era políticamente liberal,
pero compartía con la izquierda italiana un kantianismo subyacente en su
concepción de la subjetividad. Partiendo de estas posiciones, Schumacher
elabora su idea de autopoiesis sobre una teoría funcionalista enraizada en la
tradición sociológica de Émile Durkheim, Talcott Parsons, y Niklas Luhmann,
y una filosofía de vida cuyos componentes provienen de la cibernética y de
sistemas de pensamiento. En Autopoiesis, el sistema no es ni indiferente ni
reactivo a su entorno. En cambio, la autonomía del sistema se manifiesta
en que el entorno influye sólo en la medida permitida selectivamente por
su “cableado” interno. Además, esta interacción puede definirse como
probabilística, o débilmente conductista, en lugar de determinista (moderna),
o indeterminada (posmoderna). Esta lógica se aplica tanto a la relación
entre el sujeto humano y la arquitectura, como a su entorno, y al sistema de
arquitectura como un todo, y la sociedad moderna, como su entorno.

Una explicación más detallada de la concepción de Schumacher acerca de

cómo la arquitectura influye en el sujeto se puede derivar de su tesis de que
la arquitectura es uno de los grandes sistemas funcionales de la sociedad,
en paralelo con la ley, la economía, el sistema político, el arte, la educación,
etc. Su función específica se define como “adapting and re-ordering society
via contributing to the provision and innovation of the built environment
as a framing system of organized and articulated spatial relations”.28 El
establecimiento del orden se descompone en la organización espacial y la
articulación espacial. Mientras que la agencia organizadora de la arquitectura
puede considerarse “dura”, en el sentido de establecer un marco material
que pre-selecciona posibilidades concretas para la respuesta subjetiva, la
dimensión de la articulación establece un régimen semiótico que conduce al
sujeto hacia el ámbito de la lectura e interpretación espacial. Esta semiótica
es tan decisiva como para condicionar el espectro de respuestas que el nivel
de organización del orden arquitectónico es capaz de provocar.

En cuanto a la teoría, Schumacher toma la posición firme de que ésta no sólo es

posible sino de importancia fundamental para la continuidad y el avance de la
disciplina. Además, aborda la teoría como tal con el argumento de que consiste
en un esfuerzo de auto-observación; por lo tanto sirve como una función
interna del sistema de la arquitectura; la teoría no es sólo acerca de cómo los
edificios deben ser diseñados para una performance determinada, sino sobre
los medios y las direcciones en que la arquitectura debe dirigir su propio
desarrollo institucional. Por ejemplo, mediante la regulación de los criterios de
selección por los cuales los edificios se incluyen en el canon arquitectónico, la
teoría participa de una economía de valores que está por encima y más allá del

28.  Ver: Patrik Schumacher, The Autopoiesis of Architecture, Volume II: A New Agenda for
Architecture: p. 371.

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nivel empírico de producción y evaluación de estructuras individuales.

El cinismo de Koolhaas y la racionalidad de su Realpolitik son abandonados

por Schumacher, que reintroduce una política constructivista y reflexiva, y
con ella, las nociones modernas de verdad, función y causalidad como piezas
fundamentales del trabajo teórico. La causalidad, sin embargo, no está vinculada,
como en el modernismo, a una postura determinista, porque, como continúa
argumentando, el principal modo de funcionamiento de la arquitectura no es
imponer una conducta, sino invitar a la respuesta subjetiva. En su adopción
del probabilismo, o determinismo débil, sigue el enfoque conceptual iniciado
por los métodos matemáticos de Lionel March y Christopher Alexander en la
década de 1960, y su desarrollo por el Space Syntax Laboratory de Bill Hillier,
a quien acredita por haber mantenido vivas las tradiciones de análisis empírico
y computacional durante los años 80.

Una cuestión importante planteada implícitamente por Autopoiesis es hasta

qué punto la teoría positiva puede ser compatible con la práctica. Las actividades
simultáneas de Schumacher como teórico/académico y socio en una gran
práctica global como Zaha Hadid Architects parece afirmar categóricamente
esa posibilidad. Sin embargo, ¿cómo han de resolverse los conflictos de interés
entre los objetivos de la teoría (consistencia) y los de la práctica (performance)?
Si se resuelven mediante el ajuste de la teoría a los requisitos de una práctica
singular, entonces su poder explicativo se verá comprometido. Mientras que
para Koolhaas el escape a la ficción es una manera de superar esta contradicción,
en Schumacher no hay reconocimiento de la misma. De ahí la pregunta queda
abierta sobre si Autopoiesis podría llegar a su límite si la arquitectura, como una
profesión liberal dentro de una economía de libre mercado, se enfrenta a los
modos de práctica donde sus bordes no son tan claros (por ejemplo, dentro de
los modelos económicos de estado de bienestar recientemente revitalizados en
América Latina y en otras partes, donde una cantidad significativa de servicios
de arquitectura están siendo engullidos por el estado). Esta advertencia no
invalida la teoría en su conjunto, pero apunta a algunos de sus flancos débiles.

Escrito por uno de sus protagonistas, Autopoiesis –un tratado de dos volúmenes
y más de 1.200 páginas– es un texto fundamental para entender el pensamiento
arquitectónico de vanguardia de las décadas de 1990 y 2000. Vuelve a la
idea de estilo como el principio estructurador de la evolución histórica de la
arquitectura, y ofrece un reporte exhaustivo del parametricismo como estilo
dominante de principios del siglo 21. Su relevancia para esta tesis radica no
sólo en su contemporaneidad, sino también en que afirma que la variación y
la heterogeneidad formal son algunos de los principales medios por los cuales
el parametricismo desencadena las respuestas subjetivas de usuarios, clientes,
críticos y arquitectos. En ese sentido, demuestra la relevancia continua de
las experiencias históricas exploradas en la tesis, y proporciona un marco
actualizado para su conceptualización.

Para concluir, cabe señalar que después de un impasse de aproximadamente

una década –en parte generada por la contundente crítica de Koolhaas hacia
los regímenes semióticos del posmodernismo–, el siglo 21 ha sido testigo de la
revitalización de las preocupaciones comunicativas, referenciales y semiológicas
como un locus privilegiado de la agencia de la arquitectura. A pesar de sus
diferencias de sensibilidad e inclinación teórica, el giro de Koolhaas hacia

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 el discurso de la figuración y la forma en Content (2003), coincide, después
de todo, con la convicción de Schumacher acerca de que la legibilidad de la
forma necesita ser reconocida como una manera poderosa a través de la cual la
arquitectura incide en la conciencia humana. Por otra parte, el reciente retorno
de la política de la práctica participativa –o más precisamente, la sensibilidad
renovada del discurso arquitectónico mainstream hacia un conjunto de
prácticas que habían sido confinadas largamente a un nicho marginal– apunta
a la necesidad de ampliar el rango de los interlocutores de la arquitectura.
La participación, tal como la ven hoy los diseñadores emergentes, es una vez
más una técnica destinada a crear sujetos, a formarlos como parte de un
experimento arquitectónico más grande; no es una renuncia a una política de la
arquitectura irreductiblemente confrontacional, excluyente, e incluso elitista.
Es en la superposición, interacción y complementación entre los efectos de
la organización material y los de la articulación formal, pero también en la
consideración de que el arquitecto no puede ser inocente con respecto a las
condiciones inmediatas de la recepción de su trabajo, que un entendimiento
contemporáneo de la relación entre la arquitectura y el sujeto humano
continuará siendo delineado en las páginas que siguen.

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 ANNEX I
FIELDS OF PROPENSITY. A PROJECTIVE ANALYSIS
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Fields of Propensity
As will be remembered, deterministic, top-down methods of formal synthesis,
such as Christopher Alexander’s Notes, had proven sterile by the late 1960’s.
In that context, structuralism infiltrated architecture as one of its prevailing
theoretical models.1 Structuralism meant, amongst other possibilities, the
opening of trans-historical, analogic dimensions for architectural thinking. It
created the conditions for a typological analysis of architecture and the city,
which rendered the contingencies of each particular project a problem of
adaptation of timeless materials. Alexander himself moved in this direction
during the 1970’s, as he adopted the notions of patterns and timelessness as
the basis of his investigations. Aldo Rossi became one of its proponents in The
Architecture of the City, and Peter Eisenman incorporated structuralist thinking
when developing the implications of Noam Chomsky’s theories on language.
In the face of uncertainty about the possibility of deductively determining
architecture’s performance, their efforts turned to issues of reference, precedent,
and representation as mediums through which to revitalize the discipline.
The study of Byker shows that its conception was not just influenced by the
empirical humanism of Team 10, but that it shared more with the structuralist
approach than has been commonly accepted. Byker appropriated historical
structures, archetypes, and motifs, and massaged them into consistency with
the local conditions, in the belief that their time-tested aptitudes would induce
a reproduction of the proven social effects of existing typologies. Erskine was
convinced that this would fulfil the aspirations of its users, sooth their incipient
unrest, and -less altruistically- propel his own architectural interests and career.

But even a structuralist framework falls short today in offering an

understanding of the agency of architecture, which cannot be reduced to its
referential dimensions, notwithstanding their significance. It is not enough
to select historical materials and match them to perceived social structures
in an effort to create “goodness of fit”, for this means to neglect the agency
of the project’s internal relationality. Nor is it conceivable to imagine that a
global performance can be ensured by a process of composition of discrete
“quantums” of organization. In other words, the referential methods employed
in Byker, including the composition of its fragments and the adoption of a
vernacular style and imagery, tell only one part of the story, that which can
be grasped through visual and semantic reasoning. The other part relates to
the invisible conditions and tensions that build up in the wake of its formal
organization -an emerging condition that could be referred to as “a potential
field of probabilistic co-presence and encounter”.2 In moving forward from
both the deterministic and behaviorist models inherited from modernism,
as well as from the influence of the deep structures and permanences of the
late 1960’s and 1970’s, the Space Syntax model developed by Bill Hillier at the
University College of London offers a valuable way to reintroduce empirical

1.     Arnulf Lüchinger claims that Aldo van Eyck was familiar with the writings of Levi-Strauss
already in the late 1950’s. See: Structuralism in Architecture and Urban Plannning (1981): 19. The
Smithson’s notion of “patterns of association”, though not explicitly assumed as structuralist, bears
a clear relation with this school of thought, characterized by its claim that singularity and difference
express deeper levels of invariance and regularity.

2.     See: Bill Hllier, Richard Burdett, John Peponis and Alan Penn, “Creating Life, or Does
Architecture Determine Anything?”, in Architecture and Behaviour Vol. 3 No. 3 (1987): 233-250.

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 methods of spatial analysis, through which it is possible to bring forth the latent
consequences of organization operating in architecture.

As proved by the seemingly endless proliferation of sketches, drafts, and

discarded alternatives, present at the Ralph Erksine Archive currently housed
at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Byker was a highly reflexive
design process, which involved posing and testing multiple formal conjunctures
in an interative cycle. Although the details of this process were hard to acquire
due to time constraints and a scarcity of explanatory documentation, it is safe to
assume that this feedback loop eventually had to stop at a point when ideologicial
or practical concerns dictated so. Each iteration implied the deployment of
evaluations to assess the field of forces that the ongoing state of organization
was producing; those forces were then indexed in a more refined version of the
project. This modelization of the design process, though hypothetical, allows us
to view the functional and visual continuities generated in Byker as self-critical
statements about the distinct identity of each singular structure. Yet, no matter
how many times the feedback loop may have ran, new effects would continue to
pop up. The introduction of the user, both real and imagined, in the picture, as
an agent of evaluation, always meant the production of a new phenomenology
that would be more complex than the sum total of the intentions and references
that were inscribed in the project as drawn. These forces were “left loose” when
the design process stopped, and can be said to constitute its field of propensity.
They are a series of properties that not only influence the subjective response
to Byker, but which may also contain the seed of its future impact upon the
discipline.

The purpose of this excercise is, first, to make explicit some of the social forces
and tendencies that Byker generates through its form, those that were “left
loose”, deliberately or not, by the designers. It is based on the hypothesis that
the relationship between physical and social form is a permanently unstable,
evolving one. It affirms what could be called a Theorem of Architectural
Incompletness, which states that the physical expression of social and natural
processes (those that finished buildings registered by patterns of wear,
degradation and weathering) can only be captured by form fragmentarily; and,
further, that architecture exerts non-semantic influences on behavior, that can
only be evaluated once its form has congealed.

The actualization of loose forces by graphically visualizing their consequences

is meant to producing a deeper understanding and a new interpretation of
the project. Its purpose is to challenge the notion that the agency of project
exhausts itself in the attributes of the building that are accessible to direct,
unaided perception. Furthermore, these actualizations seek to construct a
method that can shed light on our understanding of the user/subject that Byker
assembles. Ultimately, they are meant to expose that aspect of group formation
that is neither explicitly sought, nor figuratively captured, nor enforced by
the building, but which nonetheless plays the critical function of blurring and
softening borders between the groups that are physically sanctioned by means
of explicit planning and organizational decisions. These groups are what the
Space Syntax laboratory researchers have termed “virtual communities”.3 As
was mentioned above, our contention is that behind the interest expressed by

3.     Ibid, p. 248.

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the designers -“Byker for Byker residents”- lay a more complex plot to inject
a degree of indeterminacy in the interrelations among Byker residents. The
undeclared basis for this is the principle that the accumulation and layering of
deterministic formal decisions should lead to a productive confusion the result
of which would be the emergence of unforeseen configurations of the collective.

Generative mapping: two experiments

These maps should be read as a generative evaluation of Byker. Their goal is to
prove the existence of loose forces in the project by making them visible, and to
suggest directions in which further research could be conducted.4 The methods
employed can be linked to developments carried out under the umbrella of
Space Syntax, yet they depart from the latter’s orientation in that they aim at
fully collapsing the analytic and the synthetic moments of the research. In that
sense, their goal is at once evaluative and generative.5 Moreover, if Space Syntax
sees planning and optimization as goals in themselves, these maps use processes
of optimization as a means to generate differences where there seem to be none,
or to posit forms of difference that depart from the existing ones. In certain
ways, these maps seek to engage with the project of heterogeneity production
of which Byker was a pivotal component. However, they also upgrade Byker’s
methods by deploying methods of empirical analysis that did not exist, or were
deemed deterministic in its time. The reintroduction of these methods is an
attempt to rescue them from their behaviorist associations, exploiting them
instead for their potential to generate seductive proclivities and unpredictable
effects. In that sense, these drawings are not just maps, but also blueprints for
a potential new configuration of Byker.

Field 1: Overlapping of reverse isovist volumes

This set of diagrams investigates how outdoor spaces in Byker are “charged”
by their exposure to views from the various dwellings that surround them.
They build on the tradition that sees the interplay between private and public
spaces as part of a mutually reinforcing functional ecology, ranging from the
observations of Jane Jacobs on the sidewalks of New York’s Lower East Side and
Nigel Henderson’s views of the street dynamic in London’s Bethnal Green, to the
portaits of the neighbors of old Byker taken in 1970 by Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen,
just before demolition for redevelopment began. In these works there is not
only a romantic view of working-class street life, but also a statement about the
visual and functional continuity between house and sidewalk that permitted the
activation and differentiation of open space. Jacobs, for example, reminded us
that a visually controlled sidewalk was key for the purpose of safety, while both
photographers have documented the diversity of activities that streets were
able to host -including forms of use that border on privatization of public space,
and that can only take place in back lanes and other marginal zones; each of
them involving a specific form of communal interaction.

4.     In this context, the term “research” does not refer to the production of empirically or logically
verifiable statements, but to the production and testing of forms and material organizations.

5.     The idea of evaluation should be understood as belonging to a process of creation of aesthetic and
cultural value, to the production of indeterminate effects (i.e.:freedoms), and not just as an effort of
benchmarking.

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 A key notion developed by Space Syntax has been applied to this study, that of
the isovist. An increasingly popular concept in digital architectural analysis,
an isovist represents the volume of space that can be visually surveyed by a
viewer turning 360 degrees on a fixed axis, after the “shadows” produced by
the irregularities in the field have been subtracted.6 In this set of diagrams,
the principle of the isovist has been inverted. Instead of investigating the
potential of a given location in space to visually control its surroundings, the
goal here is to qualify the various outdoor spaces in Dunn Terrace. This has
been achieved by projecting a the visual cone of an observer situated behind
each of the windows of every house and flat in the estate. Represented in plan,
these cones are filled with a semi-transparent shading pattern that allows them
to generate an additive effect when they overlap. With all windows considered,
the overlapping of the shades creates a representation of the degree of exposure
of each zone.

The process of construction involves four steps: 1) insertion of sightlines at

every window opening in the estate; 2) insertion of view-cones at each window,
with a differentiating function that relates the angle of the view cone to the
depth of the room from which it projects, and its depth to the size of the window
itself to which it belongs; 3) trimming of the view cones as they are intercepted
by built volumes; 4) once steps 1 to 3 have been done individually for every
single level, all the levels are collapsed on a single plane.

The resulting graphic patterns are to be read as information that could be

reintroduced into the project as material or programmatic determinations.
They could be translated into formal or material choices guided by utilitarian or
expressive performance goals.

Field 2: Three-dimensional graded zoning based on

egress-route catchment areas
These diagrams are based on the premise that the envelopes of built structures
are just one amongst many possible ways to define the boundaries of a collective.
For instance, a usual way by which buildings sanction communities through
their form is when neighborhood and building associations are created to take
care of their administration and maintenance. But the designers of Byker,
immersed as they still were in the collectivist spirit of the 1960’s, clearly knew
that these associations would be insufficient to promote an intense communal
life. Hence, they foresaw a continuous circulation system that creates elevated
routes joining the various building blocks, as well as an intricate network of
pathways linking all the structures at ground level. The circulation pathways
thus have the capacity to generate linkages and continuities that are visually
contradicted by the architectural topography.

It should be mentioned that the evaluations conducted here are not intended
to pass judgement about this orchestrated contradiction between circulation
routes and building envelopes. As is known, the idea of continuous circulation
-even when masked as the consequence of objective constraints on the use of

6.     See: Alasdair Turner, Maria Doxa, David O’ Sullivan, Alan Penn, “From isovists to visibility
graphs: a methodology for the analysis of architectural space”, in Environment and Planning B:
Planning and Design Vol. 28 (2001): 103-121.

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elevators and stairs- became a hallmark of postwar collective housing; yet, its
attempt to generate social and spatial complexity turned out often to be mere
complication. Users did not always embrace the collectivist inclinations of
architects and technocrats; besides, the administrative, managerial, and legal
infrastructure needed to run these buildings was frequently underfunded, ill-
conceived, or simply missing.7 On the other hand, it could be argued that those
contradictions represent one of the most interesting features of the design, both
because of their timeliness and disciplinary relevance, and because they were
a means to respond to the perceived expectations that simplisitc functional
solutions were no longer a viable architectural enterprise.

Yet, the goal of the maps is to expose the consequences of the design intentions,
and to charge them with new potential. The maps operate on a simple assumption
and thus are only able to give a hint of the much more complex set of interactions
that are made possible by the circulation system at Byker. The assumption is
that every dwelling unit utilizes the shortest escape route to exit the estate.
Other ways out of it might be more evident or tempting for users -the choice
would most likely fluctuate according to various conditions-, but for practical
reasons the shortest one was chosen. The are two sets of maps. The first set is
a three dimensional zoning diagram. It begins by identifing the shortest exit
route for each dwelling and then established “watershed” lines to delimit three
dimensional zones sharing the same exit. There are fourteen catchment areas,
one for each of the fourteen exists that exist in Dunn Terrace -the exit points
are located at the interesection between the internal paths and the perimeter
sidewalk surrounding the estate. This first set serves as an intermediate step
to construct the graded representations of pedestrian traffic and exposure that
make up the second set. The latter deals with the transformation of these “hard”
zones into fields of potential movement. Diagram 2a uses shades to index
the amount of traffic that the doorstep of each dwelling would be exposed to
under such conditions; it maps where the circulation network creates areas of
greater intensity of use, stimulating the possibility of chance encounters and
the formation of groups of acquaintance. Diagram 2b inverts the coding system
of 2a revealing groups of dwellings that are near or adjacent to the “watershed”
lines. Contrary to the groups defined by the darker shades of color in map 2a,
which form potentially on the basis of their definite tendency to use similar
circulation routes, map 2b materializes areas where the difference between
exiting in one direction or in the opposite is barely detectable. In these zones
of egress-ambiguity, two different potentials can be discovered; one relates to
the fact that, having the least amount of passer-by traffic, these dwellings are
poised to enjoy a more private use of the access decks or street-level pathways;
second, given their likelihood to use at least two exit routes indistinctly, the
inhabitants of the dwellings situated on or near the boundaries of each of the
catchment areas are more prone to acquiring an extensive knowledge of the
estate and its neighbors given that they have better opportunities to develop
variety in their routines of circulation. Both of the potentials described have
implications for group formation, and the virtual communities they construct
map an invisible social territory that deviates from the the form of buildings, yet
depends on it for its existence.

7.    During the 1990’s and early 2000’s, this was the case in some areas of Byker, as recounted by
Abrams (2003), Glynn (2013), and Ravetz (1976).

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FIELD 1: Reverse isovist volumes

This page: Lines of vision. All levels superimposed (untrimmed).

Opposite page: Lines of vision. Individual levels.

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FIELD 1: Reverse isovist volumes

This page: Cones of vision. All levels superimposed (trimmed).

Opposite page: Cones of vision. Individual levels (trimmed).

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FIELD 1: Reverse isovist volumes

This page: Lines and cones of vision. All levels superimposed (trimmed).
Opposite page: Lines and cones of vision. Individual levels (trimmed).

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FIELD 2: Three dimensional zoning based on egress-route catchment areas

Egress routes. Walking paths from dwellings based on minimum distance to an exit from the estate.

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Virtual zoning. Subdivision planes indicating “watershed” lines, delimiting the catchment areas of each exit.

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FIELD 2: Three dimensional zoning based on egress-route catchment areas

Doorstep intensity. Graded representation of the amount of people that might exit by passing in front of each dwelling’s entrance door. Darker
color indicates heavier traffic in front of a dwelling’s doorstep.

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Zones of undecidabilty. Darker color indicates groups of dwellings sited on or near the watershed lines, prone to have more options for egress.

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 ANNEX II
BYKER FACT SHEET & DUNN TERRACE DWELLING COUNT
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Fact Sheet

Architects: Ralph Erskine Arkitektkontor AB (Drottingholm, SE)

Vernon Gracie, Associate Architect

Roger Tillotson, Architect-in-charge

Team: Michael Drage, Trevorn Harris, Dave Hill, Tony McGuirk,

Ken McKay, Tony Smith, Peter Willis.

Dunn Terrace phase in association with Douglass Wise & Partners.

Landscape: Per Gustafsson, Gerry Kemp, Arne Nilsson, Pet Hederus,

Derek Smith

Client: Newcastle upon Tyne Metropolitan District Authority

City of Newcastle upon Tyne Housing Committee

General contractor: Stanley Miller Ltd., Fairclough Building, Ltd.

Construction: 1970-1982

Site area: 81 ha (200 acres)

Dwelling units commissioned in 1968: 3000

Total units projected: 2216 / 2500-3000 initially (PoI)

Total units built: 2010 (Park Hill 1, 994 units; Park Hill 2, 1293 units)

People to be housed: 9000

Density: 237 pph. (up to 289 in Dunn Terrace).

Density prior to development: 297 pph (Rowe, 1992)

Number of neighborhoods/development areas: 12

Phasing: 1-5 between 1970 and 1975. 6 from 1976 on (Rowe).

Building types: Low-rise housing (80%)

Mid-rise link blocks (5%)

Mid-rise perimeter block (15%)

Dwelling types: Flats, Maisonettes, Terraced houses.

Additional pr.: four churches, YMCA, four schools (including day

nurseries), two geriatric units, a library, central community
center numerous dispersed clubs (shipley street baths).

Parking: 1.25 spaces per dwelling

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 Construction: Perimeter wall, poured-in-place concrete; low-rise units,
concrete foundation, timber frame; link blocks, brick and
aircrete block cavity cross walls with pre-cast concrete
flooring, floors within maisonettes made of timber construction,
precast cantilevers for balconies and access decks built into
cross-walls. (Amery: 1974, Dunster: 1979).

Tenancy: All dwellings provided as rental units. Six months forward

allocation in increments of 12 . Users allowed to prepare,
they can “pick and choose”. Once shown were they would be
housed thorugh large scale drawings, tenants had 10 days to
accept or refuse. All families on ground-level with access to
gardens.

Architectural and planning fees: 300.000 GBP = 715.000 USD /

4.609.000 USD at 2014 values (as reported by The Evening Chronicle 15.9.69)

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Table no. 1

Distribution of dwelling units in Dunn Terrace

Size Size Total n. of

Unit type (sqm) (people) N. of units people
Perimeter block 1p flat 38 1 3 3
Dunn Terrace + (stair access)
Northumberland Terrace
2p flat 57 2 1 2
(street access)
2p maisonette 59 2 58 116
(deck access)
4p maisonette 91 4 21 84
(street access)
6p maisonette 108 6 2 12
(street access)
85 217
Point block 2p flat 45 2 25 50
Tom Collins House (deck access)
2p flat - corner 48 2 11 22
(deck access)
2p flat – roof terr. 48 2 4 8
(deck access)
3p flat 73 3 3 9
(stair access)
3p flat 65 3 9 27
(deck access)
5p maisonette 110 5 1 6
(stair access)
53 122
East link block 2p flat 51 2 1 2
Wolsley House (stair access)
3p flat 68 3 3 9
(deck access)
3p flat 71 3 4 12
(street access)
3p maisonette 63 3 1 3
(stair access)
4p maisonette 84 4 1 4
(stair access)
10 28
Middle link block 2p flat 51 2 3 6
Graham House (deck access)
3p flat 68 3 3 9
(stair access)
3p maisonette 63 4 2 8
(deck access)
4p maisonette 84 4 2 8
(deck access)
5p maisonette 51 5 6 30
(street access)
16 61
West link block 2p flat 51 2 2 4
Salisbury House (stair access)
2p flat 51 2 5 10
(deck access)
3p flat 68 3 6 18
(stair access)
3p maisonette 63 3 3 9
(deck access)

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 4p maisonette 84 4 3 12
(deck access)
5p maisonette 51 5 8 40
(street access)
27 93
East terraced housing 4p house 84 4 25 100
cluster (street access)
Clive Place
5p house 105 5 3 15
(street access)
6p house 105 5 9 45
(street access)
37 160

West terraced housing 4p house 84 4 18 72

cluster (street access)
Low Fold
5p house 105 5 12 60
(street access)
6p house 105 5 3 15
(street access)
33 147
Total number of people
828

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Table no. 2

Sizes of dwellings in floor space as recommended by the Parker Morris report

(in square feet)

6p 5p 4p 3p 2p 1p

3 storey 1050 1010

house

2 storey cent. 990 910 800

terrace

2 storey semi 990 880 770

or end terrace

Maisonette 990 880 770

Flat 930 850 750 610 480 320

Single storey 900 810 720 610 480 320

house

Storage

House 50 50 50 45 40 30

Flat/ 15 15 15 12 10 8
Maisonette

inside

Flat/ 20 20 20 20 20 20
Maisonette

outside

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 ANNEX III
DUNN TERRACE GRAPHIC SURVEY
Structural mother cell: base geometry and its degrees of freedom

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Structuaral mother cell: unfolded variations

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Structural striations. Horizontal and vertical (I)

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Structural striations. Horizontal and vertical (II)

Catalogue of structural modules (I)

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Catalogue of structural modules (II)

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Circulation system. Vertical shafts.

Circulation system. Vertical + horizontal paths and decks

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Dwelling typologies

Dwelling typologies. schematic unfolded floor plans (I)

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Dwelling typologies. schematic unfolded floor plans (II)

Dwelling typologies. schematic unfolded floor plans (II)

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Dwelling typologies. schematic unfolded floor plans (III)

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Dwelling typologies. schematic unfolded floor plans (IV)

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Dwelling typologies. schematic unfolded floor plans (V)

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Dwelling typologies. schematic unfolded floor plans (VI)

Dwelling typologies. schematic unfolded floor plans (VI)

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Dwelling typologies. distribution map.

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Dwelling typologies. distribution map.

Envelope delayering.

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Dwelling typologies. Catalogue (I)

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Dwelling typologies. Catalogue (II)

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Dwelling typologies. Catalogue (III)

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Dwelling typologies. Catalogue (IV)

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Dwelling typologies. Catalogue (V)

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Dwelling typologies. Catalogue (VI)

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Envelope. Fenestration system.

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Envelope. Fenestration system.

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Envelope. Clip-on systems.

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Envelope. Fenestration and clip-on systems.

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Envelope. Fenestration, clip-on systems and graphic systems.

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ANNEX IV
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