Reyner Banham

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A person who challenges the ideal of 1 , 2 , 3rd machine age
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Having a glance back to the 1 machine age which occurred approx. in 1900-1950’s was known of its
predecessor, Adoolf Loos, father of all European platitudes, he pleads Ornament is Crime, within this is the
age of Capitalism power and in the same time reduction from machine scale which was enormous to human
scale. Its first notion of building example from Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer, Fagus Factory in1911-1913,
Bauhaus Dessau, Weimar, and Berlin in about 1925-1933; Le Corbusier with his Villa Savoye in1928-1931
which he expressed a pavilion or villa which was influenced by Amede Ozenfant, purism painter’s; Van Nelle
Factory in 1925-1931 by Johanes Brinkman and Leendert Van Der Vlugt, Schroeder house in 1924 by Gerrit
Rietveld. It was the era of form follow function slogan, international style for the end product of built form,
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futuristic movement, streamline design, design of everyday life objects. Therefore the 1 machine age was a
notion which typified the work of most of European architects which cultivated and predominantly as
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‘machine’ of everyday life. While the 2 machine age (1950-1960’s) was characterized with the age of
domestic electronic and chemistry for wealthy customers, Motorola TV, and also cinema was open for
public. It was the age of common technology for everyone and its famous slogan ‘I shop therefore I am’, in
the same time it was a shift and altered to a new paradigm of the ‘desire and needs' toward the product’
rather than its functionality. For example, Eames chair and Ottoman in 1956, Braun Radio in 1955, Citroen
DS19 in 1962 were often strived for the beauty, seductive, and desirable characteristic. In certain continuity,
it doesn’t supersede the previous notion, but rather display’s it. Within the period of time in 1950’s and
1960’s the emerging movement of new independent group of artists or architects, they introduced man
culture into debate of a higher culture, in 1955, man, machine, photograph exhibition, and the immense of
companies which promoting a product toward desire has been the main notion. The idea of miniaturization,
mass consumer culture, branding identifies the product subconscious buying, packaging for selling and
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media as a new theory. Moving forward to the 3 machine age from 1960’s to 1990’s, high hierarchical
society, movement from object to event and situations, slogan ‘to worries at and to be there at’, Archigram
movement which steered by Ron Herron, Peter Cook, Michael Webb, in 1970’s and 1980’s the outcome of
personal stereo created personalization electronic nomads as the invisible gadget. Whilst in architectural
theory was questioned by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown with Complexity and Contradiction in
Architecture, Learning From Las Vegas from both Reyner Banham, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown,
it was in idea to reassessed the symbolism of form and promoting the symbolism space over the form space
and architecture was shifted toward pop culture.

The industrial design was altered beyond its recognition on 1950’s -1960’s , this was what Banham pleads
that the architects possessed to design all non-structural equipments, lighting, chair, and so forth. The
architect’s role has been influenced in terms of furniture design more than the regular customer of itself.
Within the same time period, development idea of built-in furniture has been desirable for most of architects
as another solution to keep the integrity of the design as Le Corbusier promoted. The occurrence of
appliances such as fridge, washing machine; brand image known out as a virus to the public realm for
example British railways, Citroen, Detroit city as a center of American’s automobile industry, festival of Britain
which they presumed that the public taste it is not improved, yet their taste its more sophisticated, Italian
‘Olivetti’ typewriter, and many other industries are started to recognized with their distinct style as they used
symbol as their identity. Banham known as the author of the first machine age theory and design in 1960’s
and Learning from Las Vegas in 1971, and also Architecture of Four Ecologies (Sufurbia, Foothills, The Plains
of ID, Autopia) and he was a member of post modernism resistance group. He was also an architectural
theorist and prolific architectural critic and writer. He stated that modernism has to be criticized and
evaluated; he argued to what Venturi’s emphasized, known as observation of form as an end and not
theorizes them in the sense of actuality. Banham exemplified his method of searching and observing which
was quite peculiar, by having the example, video of Banham loves LA on pair of eyes, he performed to enjoy
the richness and diversity, which he promoted it gives a polymorphous architecture example of openness
and inclusiveness, which in the end the architecture spatial quality distinguish over the representation of
painting and sculpture. It is a contrary method to what Venturi’s did, learning from Las Vegas, formlessness
and tastelessness is to challenge the orthodoxies and revoke in the sense of possibilities. Venturi has
mentioned that bicycle shed is a building, Lincoln cathedral is an architecture piece. The comparative
method of what Venturi and Denise Scott Brown’s did to analyze that Guild House characteristic such as it
looks cheap, it has architectural meaning, it is boring, it is denotative symbol, it is applied ornament, symbolic
ornament, decoration by attaching the superficial elements, form of symbolism, it is a representational art
and evocative architecture, societal message, propaganda, mixture of high and low art, evolutionary using
historical precedent, and it is the representation of an old and ordinary words with new meanings. In its
contrary they analyzed that Crawford Manor by Paul Rudolph characterized with its expensive appearance, it
is form of expression, connotative symbol, integral expressionism, expressive ornaments, the articulation of
integrated elements, it is form of abstraction, abstract expressionism, innovative architecture with its content
and articulation, it is the representation of high art, revolutionary and progressive movement over traditional
architecture or anti traditional, it is form of new words and extra ordinary. Banham rather pleads toward
desire design, relooking Vietnam war as a reference of thinking, and hippies movement. However reformist or
radical his point of view, he never loses his faith in modernism ‘form in space’. In 1962, his essay towards
pop architecture, he found that the relevant of pop aesthetic and ethic in architectural industry, but it needs
exploration and adjustment to social life. Pop arts almost conceived without the mechanization and mass
production, it is begun to question the pop taste, in terms of context and content in architectural quality, it
was a breakthrough and success for a kind of sensibility. He described, connection between architecture
and painting, it might be true for Renaissance but not for all, architecture deals with property therefore a lot
of new branch of commerce, architecture might be involved in its own way, architecture at some point has to
address financial structure and common enterprises included with gadgets, which in the same time evoke a
new question of where to draw the line between pop and architecture itself.

In 1965, Banham collaborated with Francois Dallegret whose worked are immense visualizing clear and
concise for example transportable standard, anatomy of dwelling, trailmaster to transcontinental, super
coupe the long weekendwhich evoke that a house determined by its services and an anti house is where
absolute functionality clear away all thoughts of symbolic fulfillment. It is the logical conclusion to American
tradition that doesn’t bother on the question of aesthetic or style. When a house comprises of pipes, flues,
ducting, wires, inlets, outlets, oven conduits, refuse disposers, hi-fi reverberators, antenna, and so many
services that could stand by itself without any assistance from the house and half of the cost mostly tackle
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for these purposes. The 1 mechanical service is still to new for the slogan ‘form follow function’, accusez la
structure, firmness commodity and delight, truth to material, wenig ist mehr or less is more. The closest
stand point was Le Corbusier ‘Pour Ledoux C’etait Facile-Pas De Tubes’ which has stand for the profound
nostalgia for the golden age before piping set in. The emergent of services into a house was derived from the
American obsession with cleanliness and it moved toward the psychological motive that people had to
breathe, in 1904, Konrad Meier stated in heating and ventilating the excessive amounts of water vapor, sickly
odor from respiratory organs, unclean teeth perspiration, untidy clothing, the presence of microbes due to
various conditions, stuffy air from dust carpets cause greater discomfort. In relation to house and its service,
Groff Cronklin wrote that in ‘Weather Conditioned House’, the definition of a house is nothing but a hollow
shell; shell is all a house or any structure in which human beings live and work. Here we can presume that a
single volume that has to be lighted and heated was strived from American obsession, and the cubicular
interiors is from European. Relooking back to Franklin stove, Kerosene Lamp, the American interiors has to
be better serviced and it was to support the civilized structure. Banham pleads that a house constructed by
its services is hard to differ between structure and its services, for example Louis Kahn Laboratory building.
The monumental space in America is porch and terrace; they have never established the creation of
monumental space in Europe which characterized with large spaces. Therefore the mobile home was
another solution for American’s which also obsessed with outdoor and lack of architectural solution,
standard of living package such as lighting, ice cube maker, and they prefer on spending for services rather
than the permanent structure, which leads us toward a clear distinction that a housing has its service core.
Banham presumed that the growth of electronic gadgets with American culture it is improving the situations
by means of crafty and compact, and it also provoke the consideration of human comfort. For example from
log homes to mill cut timber by the easy ordering of nails, Coca Cola machines in Latin America and Arab
was misplaced, because it was not the native culture, Montreal and Boston would have died or went down if
the gizmo’s was out, it was the life if catalogue, which you can choose what you want. In the same time the
important notion of this period 1960’s onward was that the American domestic architecture has been
developed very well in terms of its services.

Rem Koolhaas
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New form of architecture in 20 century

Rem Koolhaas is a theorist, architect, journalist, and work connected with sociology, historical terms, and he
is one of the most wired man in the world, member of post modernism of resistance, relating to his essay,
Junkspace, which he described as a residue of mankind lived on the planet, it is a product of modernization,
it was a result of the architecture inability to explain space and preoccupation of architecture, It has brought
us to rethink of its individual part, its continuity, in terms of invention, expansion, the end product, the new
enlightenment, the seamlessness, and new infrastructures that could accommodate the dynamic growth of
the world toward both developments in terms of physical and non-physical creation. Rem Koolhas was
concerned about the state of this century which has loosed the battle with the issue of quantity, the
urbanism has been unable to invent and implement in the scale demanded apocalyptic demographics, for
example the fluctuation in Lagos from 2 to 7 million people, and it was grown from 12 to 15 million people,
Istanbul from 6 to 12 million people, China even more staggering multiplication and in the same time
urbanism has disappeared at the moment when urbanization was happened everywhere by its constant
acceleration. Like in the modern age that we could see the failure of modernism has always faced the same
issue of quantity which in the end it was a question of quality and in its abstraction it was repeating the failure
of political power, creative movement, logistically, and also the aesthetic are finished due to its tendency lose
to computer, it emphasized that the urbanism has to be modified to urge the demanded world of newness.

Rem Koolhaas as the author of Delirious New York, S.M.L.X.L, and many other publications with several
universities, like his affiliation with A.A. School London, Harvard graduate student, he often demonstrated the
act of mixture of OMA which run the architecture, modernization, typology, diagram, office, ideology, which
serving a purpose for a new shift in architecture, and in the other hand, AMO run for the content,
globalization issues, identity, logo or symbols, it is a network based investigation, all the efforts to prevail the
issue of the city that has failed to run as it supposed to and mere functioned as an instant virtual world, while
having the media as the powerful device to represent information, and in the end he promoted the idea of
architecture should make people experience the reality, and it is more than the act of doing something.
Revert back to what Rem Koolhaas considered that the building has more relation with its programme for its
actuality and current context and content and he pleads that what building can do in the future, it was
beyond measurement and code, it demonstrates to organized somewhat is real to unreal and it pretends to
unite but again it failed. In regards to this issue Neil Leach was adding that the world nowadays, it is
dominated by commercialism and advertisement, which intentionally bring a new world of shopping in every
part of our life. It shows that the value of goods is no longer in itself but it has shifted and sold the lifestyle,
the omnipresent of the world has moving toward fantasies than its reality.

Rem Koolhaas collaborated with Bruce Mau the author of Global Image Economy, Massive Change. Bruce is
a Canadian Designer, he was associate Cullinan professor in 1996-1999 at Rice University-Houston; He has
also been a thesis advisor in University of Toronto, Faculty of Architecture, Landscape & design, he is an
artist in residence at California Institute of The Arts, he is a visiting scholar in Getty Research Institute. He is a
Creative Director of Bruce Mau Design. With or without Koolhaas, he pushes the role of designer toward
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better appreciation from public, and both of them plead that in 20 Century is the massive change era
because of the normative used of digital devices, making the rapid changes in all over aspects,

Bruce Mau with Rem Koolhaas were promoting the integration between content and form globalization of
architectural form and graphic design as a neutral method for communication, design can be cultivated, and
with the advent of computer technology, it makes design more accessible to everyone. It re-socializes us
toward an instant city rather than physical development. The instant impact of satellite tv, emails, web sites
has change the world particularly in terms how the business, games, and shopping was running and the
most influential invention was the mobile phone with full internet access has blur the boundaries, increase the
inter connectivity, for example the product of nokia 7110 and it’s descendent nokia 3110 it is the true media
phone because its availability to access the service and text over the internet.

Rem Koolhaas believed to stand against the dynamic movement of people, we have to get engaged with all
variations of scholar, to address and encompasses more aspects toward the globalized world of nowadays.