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 Con ents

6 Mark Rakatansky Transformational Constructions (For Example: Adult Day)

32 Greg Lynn Multiplicitous and Inorganic Bodies

50 Sanford Kwinter Landscapes of Change: Boccioni's Stati d'animo as a

General Theory of Models

66 The Strictly Brian Boigon's Cartoon Regulators

Architectural

72 Mark Jarzombek Ready-made Traces in the Sand: The Sphinx, the Chimera,
and Other Discontents in the Practice of Theory

96 David Wills Designs on the Body: Film/Architecture/Writing

106 Giuliana Bruno Bodily Architectures

112 re:assemblage Re:Forging Warke's Forgeries

 I .,

·t - .\

11 r
,.
r~

1
I "
,-" .'
~

,
,~ -
I

t-W-l-
~.-
2. Villa Stein at Garche
S L~nn teaches at the Graduate School
- \rchl tccturc, Planning, and l'reserva-
at Columbia University and at the
<aduate School of Architecture at Ohio
te UnI\,ersity. lie is editor of Folding in
~dll teclure (Academy Editions) and
Jailtor of Felish (Princeton Architectural
.)
1. Uberty's armature under
construction and sections
through the shoulders
\u4!mbluge 19 C 1992 ~ tht' ~laua(husctl s
Instit ute of Tcchnolog.
I ;of
f--~ -
J I
3. Villa Malcontenta 4, Villa Malcontenta 5. Villa Zena at Cessalto
Greg Lynn
Multiplicitous and
Inorganic Bodies
Types of Spatial Bodies
It isobvious, moreover, that mathematical organizat ion imposed
on stone is nonc other than the completion of an c\'oiutioll of
earthly fonns. whose meaning is given. in the biologica l order, by
the passage of the simian to the human fOfm , the latter alread)
presenting all the elements of architecture. In morphological
progress men apparently represent only an intermediate stage
between monkeys and great edifices. Forms ha ve become more and
more sta tic, more and more dominant. "Inc human order frol11 the
beginning is, just as casily, bound up with archi tectural order.
which is no morc than its development.
Georges Bataillc '
In 1949 Rudolf Wittkower systematized a theory of harmonic
proportion by uncovering a single spatial type in the domestic
architecture of And reas r alladio. Indeed, he discovered
Palladio, one might say, by inventing an origin for his work.'
Wittkower's thcory continucs to provide a general rule for the
definition of essential architectural structure: the nine-square
grid. Thc exact geometry of this type guarantees its universal
applicability. Wittkowcr exploits the differences between
cleven of Palladio's villas for their ability to cancel each other
out. For the cancellation of disparate elements manifests a
"hidden" typological order: through a method of "return
inquiry" thc nine-square grid emerges as the universal origin
of each of the villas' For \Vittkower, the type is not merely a
constellation of mathematical correspondences, but further, a
system of spatial organization that function s as a unified and
self-regulating body.llle nine-square-grid type, through
33

r- -
6. Villa Poi ana at Maggiore
r--
f--
-
7. Villa Sarego at Miega
han110nic proportion, makes each villa in particular, and thc
e1cven villas in general, whole. Two years earlier, in Ti,e Math-
ematics of the Ideal Villa, Colin Rowe used the same nine-
square grid to crossbreed two pairs of tll.ns: Le Corbusier's
Villa Savoye with Palladio's Villa Rotunda and Le Corbusier's
Villa Stein with Palladio's Villa Malcontenta.' Both "progeny"
seem less than natural kin to the paternal villas (the type
relying on variations among the villas and never fully present
in anyone). It is, ne"ertheless, the proportional correspon-
dence of these often contradictol)' spatial organizations that
lays the groundwork for a single cubic spatiality from which a
lineage of villas are born' For Rowe, the proportional har-
mony of the spatial body founded on thc nin e-square grid
evoked a "Virgil ian tranquillity.'"
Rather than continue this logic of burial and recovery of
origins for architecture, might there be another way to re-
spect particularities and differences ,vithout "returning our
inquiry" to universal types? Today we confront a different but
related problem: \~fhat is the nature of the interior of archi-
tecture? \Vhat lies hidden ,vithin this interior? These ques-
tions are already thematized within architecture through the
erection of boundaries that establish the difference, and
degree of autonomy, between inside and outside. Yet before
determining where to begin with architectural interiority-
which is a problem of finding an entry - we have to question
the origin of the interior. In the work of Vitruvius we find the
first clue to the problem of the type and content of this inte-
ri or space. lie identified an internal "proportional balance
which results from principles of symmetl)' in architecture."
\ 'itru\1uSexpressed remorse that, like a living body, the breast
of arch itecture could never be opened to reveal th e secrets of
it interior - But the architectural orders of proportion and
"mmetl) are not simply already present ,vithin architecture;
according to Vitruvius, they have been in tentionally con-
cealed so that questions of interiority can be posed only
"ltlun a c1o.ed harrnolllc system . This geometric system of
proportIOn. as \\ 'ittkoller. Rowe. and Vitruvius have argued,
IS rI.or a .. hole. This description of architecture as a har-
momc, no;turalh proporlloned organism is indebted to the
opanJOD of h\lI-purlomed secrets" ,,,thin thc inviolate
mtmor ~ and the Ixxh
assemblage 19
I
•
8. Villa Thiene at Cicogna 9. Villa Erno at Fanzolo
111c Unity of the Organism and the Eidetic
Language of Geomctry
Tlle design of a temple depends on symmetry, the principles of
which must be most carefully observed by the architect. TIley are
duc to proportion, in Creek. Proportion is i1 correspondence among
the Illeasures of the members of an entire work, and of the whole to
a certain part selected as standard. From this result the principles of
symllletry. \Vithout symmetry and proportion there can be no
principles in thc design of any temple; that is, if there is no precise
relation between its members, as in the case of those of a wel\-
shaped man.
Vitruvius~
Pure geometl) and kinematics (and all the associated sciences for
which thcy are the example here), then, will be materiill eidetics,
since their purpose is the thingly, and thus the corporea l,
detenllination of objects in general. But they are abstract material
sciences, because the~ only treat certain eidetic components of
corporeal things in general, disregarding their independent and
concrete totalit~ . which also comprise the 'material' (stofflich) ,
sensible qualities and the totalit) of their predicates. Spatial shapes,
temporal shapes, and shapes of motion are always singled out frolll
the total it) of the perceived body. By itself alone, then, a static
analysis could a priori and rigorously recall for us that the
protogeometer always already had :'It his disposal anexact spatia-
temporal shapcs and essentially 'vague' morphological types. which
can always givc rise to a pregeol11ctrical descriptive scicnce. This
could be called geography. For such a subject. the rigor of eidetic
assertions (like that for detenllining vague essences) is not at all
undemlined by the necessary anexactitude of the perceived object.
\Ve must indeed beware of scientific naIvete, which causes this
anexactitude of the object or concept to be considered as a 'defect,'
as an inexactitude.
Jacques Derrida lO
In architecture, structure is drawn ,vithin things. As Bataille
has suggested, architecture is the locale where the universality
of geometry binds the base matter of temporal bodies. The
regulating lines of architcctural orders make a connection to
the world as a whole, but also to the specific morphological
characteristics of forms. Spatial types are involved in the
practice of originating families of form (as in the constitution
of "species" such as Wittkowcr's brood of ,.l1as) ." Architec-
34

10. Villa Rotunda 11. Geometric pattern of
Palladio's villas
tural types organize amorphous matter. Architectural pro-
portion, moreover. achieves the transcendental status of an
abstract, holistic, and organic body. It adopts the logic of an
organism, which is above and beyond either mathematics or
matter. \ Vhat distinguishcs hanmonie proportion from math-
ematicalmeasure is the value granted to specific ratios based
on the symmetrical unity of all parts to a whole.111e terms
organic, organism, and organization can be used interchange-
ably to the extent that they all delimit things that are whole
- that is, containing both a rigid external boundary, "to
which nothing can be added or subtracted without jeopardiz-
ing the balance of the composition," and an interior space
closed to the unpredicted and contingent influences of exter-
nal forces." It is important to qualify these ideal bodies as
whole to the fullest extent, complete to the point of exclu-
sion. 111is organic logic of proportion is already embedded
within architecture's interior.
Architecture's provision for structure, use, and shelter neces-
sitates an absolute and exact delimitation of internal volume
from ex ternal forces . To signify this rigid sense of th e interior,
architecture frequentl y invokes the paradigm of the inviolate
interior of a living body. Le Corbusier's Modular provides an
obvious example of the alignment of the body with measure.
Of course, the paradigmatic body is both docile and static;
its particularities of culture, histor)" ra ce, development, and
degeneration are repressed in favor of a general modc\. Even
the llusserlian notion of "variation" places the particular in
the service of the average or mean." The typology of natural
orders is always underwritten by the variable measurement
of differen ce between and within species. Par instan ce, the
evolutionary transfonnation "From Frog to Apollo," which
appea red in the 1803 edition of Johann Caspar Lavatds
Physiognomische Fragmente, exploited both the constellation
of particularities and differences between the frog and the
ideal man and a continuous and general (aciality that regis-
te rs these differences. H
Rather than reducing the-differential variations between
elements to a static type, Lavater employed a continuous,
differentiated system of transfonnation . A similar method
of Cartesian deformation was devcloped in 1917 by the mor-
Lynn
023466
12-13. Cartesian deformation of
diodo" into mola
phologist D'Arcy Thompson to describe the transfonmabons
of natural fonn in response to environmental forces. ; Thomp-
son provisionally aligned bodies and measure in such a waj
that particular diss)'lnmetries and disproportions were malll-
taincd as events within a defomlable, supple, and Irreducible
geometric system of description. Ceometry is no longer a
static measure of invariant and unitary characteristics but
becomes what Cilles Deleuze and Pelix Cuattari have referred
to as a "plane of consistency" on which differential transfor-
mations and deformations occur. Type itself is never present
in a fixed state in an entire specics. 111Us a more fluid and
dynamic system of measure ca n be employed to describe
ever-changing spatial bodies through their manifestations at
singular moments. In Thompson's dcfomlations, particular
information influences and tranSfOnll S a general grid, making
geometry more compliant to the matter it describes. 11,e
enlargement of a fi sh's eye, for example, is registered in the
defonmation of its accompanying grid. 11,e dimensional fluc-
tuation became, for Thompson, an indication of light level
and water depth influencing that particular species. In this
manner, the type or spatial organism is no longer seen as a
static whole separate from external forces, but rather as a
sensibility continuously transfonning through its internaliza-
tion of outside evcnts. But within the pact of the organism
and the geometric language with which it is exactly described.
these fluid characteristics are generally reduced to fixed
principles. "
To understand this better we must look to the language of
geometry with an eye toward those moments where it de-
scribes spaces and fonms as whole bodies. It is in fact most
likely not utility, economy, or structure that fixes architecture
statically, but its prejudice in favor of geometric ideality. Ge-
ometry provides the apparently universal language \\;th wh.ch
architecturc assumes to speak through histol) , across culture,
and over time. Architecture tends to employ geometries that
are eidetic: that is, they are manifest visually as pure spatial
coordinates; they are self-identical, signifying nothing other
than themselves; th ey are repeatable identically; and the~ are
absolutely translatable for all people, for all time. For example,
geomet ry need posit only one "sphere" as a surface composed
of an infinite numbcr of points equidistant from a smgle
35
 assemblage 19

'. "

14-23. Transformation of frog

into Apollo

radius. In effect, the sphere that existed for Plato has been organic models of proportional harmony and stasis through a
handed down to us identicalJy across cultures and throughout flexible compliance to particularitics. TI,ompson's deforma-
history. "Vague" objects that are merely round may be more tions, remember, subject the stasis of geometric types to
or les spherical yet no two arc ever absolutely identical. dynamic transfom,ation through the internalization of par-
"Roundness" itself can be defined \\;th probability but never ticular vague, or anexact, characteristics. \\fith a less whole
ideally described with exactitude. Like\\;se, an ideal sphere and wholesome paradigm of th e body, not only do typologies
can never be realized in matter. Certain things arc believed to become dispersed, but moreover, their interiors open to pro-
be spherical even though their specific matter guarantees ductive alliances. nat is to say, spatial bodies other than the
that they never achieve the pure form . Vague forms that do ideal types arc brought into affiliations with systems outside
not repress the particular characteristics of matter are typi- of their boundaries, where their detenninacy at any point in
cally considered to be inexact." Geometric exactitude, in time is available to the influences of external events. Deleuze
other words, tends to transform particularities, no matter how and Guattari have proposed such a model for a "body ,dthout
precise they may be, into incxactitudes through mathemati- organization": the organic, bound by a unified and intemally
cal reduction . Its rendcrs particularities and diffcrence as consistent model of the organism, is refom1Ulated as a multi-
mere variations beneath which subsists a more fixed and plicity of affiliated organs without any singlc rcductivc organi-
universal language of proportions. zation. 19 ln architecture, the present static alliance between
rigid gcometry and whole organisms cannot bc cntirely over-
Proportional bodies are bound by geometric exactitude:
C0111e but it can be made more flexiblc and fluid through the
TI,ese ideal spatial organisms arc reducible and identically
usc of suppler, dcfom,able geometrics.
repeatable. TI,ey have the appeal of being stated "once and
for all." In systems of proportion, architecture assumes a
Geometry resists the play of writing 1110re than any other
natural relationship between geometry, with its claims to
Ianguagc. Bataille's idea of the il1(onne, or "fonnless," recog-
exact measure, and the unified stasis of an organism, with its
ni zes the capacity to both definc and defer fom, ,dthin a
claims to wholencss. Because of its predilection for fixity and
practice of writing.ll1is "infornlal " practice writes the
staSIS, archi tecture has become the privileged site for the
anomalies in a manner that is amorphous. Denis Ilollier,
elISIon of eidetic geometry and holistic organizalion. Yet we
should beware of any architecture described as wholesome
or organic, for the logic of the organism is the logic of self-
24-26. Hedgehog flea with mites
enclosure, self-regulation, and self-detem,ination. Buildings
are not organisms but merely provisional structures that are
alread~ multiplicitous. \'Ihore the organic is intcmalJy consis-
tent. the "inorganic" is internally discontinuous and capable
of a multiplicity of unforeseen connections. To disentangle
the pact between organic bodies and exact geometric lan-
gtJ3gt' that underlies architectu re's static spatial types is a
montJJnental ta k. An~ attempt to loosen this alliance must
mnult.mroush -detemtorialize" the autonomy of whole
ar;;mIS1Tl> and replace the "actitude of rigid geometry \\;th
man: pbmt" tem of description I
£omu ot \\Tlhng. architecture is neither exact nor
-aDa.1Ct "A suppler geometric de cription of
mbi!mll:l::dlooIlwouJd necessari1~ loosen the connection to

36

writing through Bataille in Against Architecture, implies that
the infomle of writing can onl\' be "arrested" in form by archi-
tecture. But rather than locating the refusal of form solely
within philosophy, the fonnless might also be written within
architecture by architects. The most transgressive moment of
Batnille's inform. occurs where the fomlless is found to be
already contained within the "mathemati",,1 frock coat" of
foml.!OInfonllal writing within architecture leads. as previ-
ously suggested, toward a different kind of alliance between
geometry and the organism, resulting in ancxact, l1lultiplici-
tOllS, temporal. supple, fluid, disproportionate, and mon-
strous spatial bodies. Unlike exact geometry, infon".1 writing
accommodates differences in matter by resisting any reduc-
tions to ideal foml . Because of this hesitation to arrest fonns
once and for all, their descriptions become morc compliant to
the base matter they signify."
Monumentality and Multiplicity
The other type of multiplicit)· appears in pure duration: it is an
internal multiplicity of succession, of fuSion. of organization, of
hetcrogcncit). of qualitative discrimination, or of difference in
kind; it is a virtual and continuous multiplicit~ that cannot be
reduced to numbers.
Cilles Deleuzr
Lynn
Architecture reserves its strongest statements for the monu-
ment. The monument commemorates an event that IS C\pe-
rienced through shared (particularl) urban) histones. and
thus it offers a unitary and repeatable space. Therefore It is in
the monument that the allegiance between exact geometries
and organic models of the body are strongest. Iiollicr mCTlml-
nates architecture for its monumcntalmode of discourse. He
executes this judgment through a critical strateg) similar to
that which Derrida employed in his introduction to Edmund
Ilusserl's Origill of Ceo me try, arguing that architecture's
"origin is still lacking at the beginning."" It is the idea, again.
that architecture unifies itself by continually originatmg ideal
spatial bodies that can only be invoked after the fact of thelT
variations. Iiollier's, and Bataille's, rejection of archItecture as
a potential practice of writing depends on the assumption
that proportional order originates in and is natural to archi-
tecture. In monuments architecture arrests events in fann b~
defining ideal urban spatial bodies in exact geometric temlS.
111e challenge to architecture, once geometry and the bod\'
enter into a new alliance, is to write - in fonn - a monu-
ment that is irreducible to an ideal geometric type. To refuse
the transcendence of static form, architecture must begm to
describe the particular characteristics of incompletion rc-
jected b) the exactitude of geometT) and the s),nmetT) of
proportion .~~
37

27. longitudinal cut through 28. Two-headed planarian
anterior end of planarian, or resulting from longitudinal
flatworm cut
Deleuze and Cuattari's "body without organs" suggests an
alternative to the organic paradigm 01 the whole body. Such a
multiplicitous body is always both less than a single organism
and an alliliation 01 many organs. Their extension 01 Elias
Canetti's paradigm 01 the pack, swaml, or crowd is one model
lor engaging a less-than-whole building \I;thin a context that
is an assemblage 01often disparate morphologies rather than
a continuous labric. The behavior of the pack does not tum
on the distinctions betwecn part and whole. autonomous
individual and collective. To become intensively involved
with such an organizat ion, an individual must enter into
the alliliative alliances of the pack. There is a two-Iold
deterritorialization in becoming a multiplicity: the loss 01
internal boundaries allows both the inAuence 01 external
cvents within the organism and the expansion of the interior
outward. This generates a body that is essentially inorganic.
For instance, within a multiplicitous assemblage, each indi-
"idual delers its internal structure to benelit, by alliance, from
the Auid movcments 01 the pack. As the proper limits 01
individual elements (multiplicity 01, say, wolves) are blurred,
the pack begins to behave as il it were itsell an organism
(multiplicity 01 the pack). TI,e pack itsell is not regulated by
or reducible to any single structure. as it is continually. dy-
namically and Auidly transforming itsell in response to its
intensive inl'olvement ,vith both the external forces of its
context and the internal forces of its members. Multiplicity
describes both the assembly 01 a provisional group from dis-
parate elements - which is less than a whole - and the
alreadr less-than-wholc nature 01each 01 those elements that
are allied \11th the group. Multiplicitous bodies are always
alread) entering into relations and alliances through multiple
plications." Structurcs such as these are not identically re-
peatable outside 01 the particularities 01 their internal ele-
ments or their extemal environments. In architecture, the
mulbplic.tous connections of buildings to the particularities
"""text are t) picall) repressed by thc proportion 01 exact,
uni&ed. organic patial types. One example that speaks to the
S!rut ur..J ",ues of multiplicit) is the planarian, or Aatwoml ."
\\ • he bod} 01 a slllgle plan.rian is a very specilic con-
dIatioo oj po .bilines lor the proliferation of a multiplicit
of l':od..,..lbt Innits of thIS dC\e1opment are detemlined
assem blage '9
•I-l •.- f
,
29 . Polarity in a planarian, a
,
1
-'
1_____ •
30. Competence for
head growing from the anterior regeneration of a new head
and a tail growing from the decreases from the anterior
posterior end to the posterior end.
both by the intemal structure of the anim.1 and by the lines
01 development imposed from outside its body. TI,e develop-
ments that result along these lines ean only be described by
their affiliations.
AHiliative Connections and the Colossus
\Ve still have something in COmmon to them all; and using another
mathematical ternl (somewhat loosely perhaps) we may speak of
the discr;mincmt characters which persist unchanged, and continue
to form the subject of our tran sfonnatioll. But the method, far as it
goes, has its lim itations. We cannot Fit both beetle and cuttlefish
into the same framework, however we distort it; nor by any
coordinate transformation can we tum either of them into one
another or int o the vertebrate type. ~111 ey are essentially different;
there is nothing about them which can be legitimately compared.
D'Arc)' 111Ompson!7
A unique plane of consistcllC) or composition for the cephalopod
and the vertebrate; for the \'crtebrntc to become an Octopus or
Cuttlefish, all it would ha\'e to do is fold itself. " . PlicCl ti01J. It is 110
longer a question of organs and functions, and of a transcendent
Plane that can preside over their organization only by means of
analogical relations and types of divergent development.
Gill es Deleuze and Felix GuattarF ~
There is in the colossa l an attraction, a particular chann, to which
the theories of ordinal) art arc hardly applicable.
Fredenc Auguste Bartholdi'"
If, 'originally, the word [kolassas] has no im plication of size,' it ,,~11
comc to have th is implication later only by Clccident. \.vhat about
thi s accident. this one in particular, whieh brings cise to the
colossus, not the incisi\'e cise which gives measure, not the
moderat ing [maderat riceJ eise but the disproportionate
[demesuran te] eise?
Jacques Derridaw
I use the word a(filialive to describe the system of connec-
tions characteristic of a Illultipiicitous organism aga inst the
idea of the {Watil'e. The I.tter implies the relations 01. fam-
ily, of proper pa rents and progeny. But the proper lamily
38
 Lynn

31 , Small pieces of the planarian
.ack polarity as they regenerate
SImilar structures at both ends.
-
32. Grafting by taking a small
piece from the donor (indicated
by broken lines) and placing it
on the wound of the host
33. The graft grows into a small 34. Planarian whose head was
head. repeatedly cut, the cut edges
prevented from growing
together again

olues established through evolution often overlook the

.Jliances of different species that develop along lincs of in-
W>iulion. ll,e distinction between the two strategies is aptly
Illustrated by the debate between D'Arcy 111Ompson, who
favors essential unchanging species, and Deleuze and
Guattari, who fold these species into each other. Thompson,
as we have seen, situates essential differences on a fixed geo-
metric plane of comparison. Deleuze and Guattari attack the
essentialism of difference between these species by rendering
this plane as a complex of folded connections between dis-
parate species. Categories of fonn , such as the idea of "spe-
cies distinction," provide for a return to an original type from
35. Statue of Uberty. section
which subsequent spatial organizations develop. 11,esc types
looking west
are reinvented each time th ey are invoked. Any evolu tionary
dIScourse that employs straight filial lines of development
and pyramidal hierarchies of spccies is founded on the rela-
tions between families of fonns. And these filial relations arc
weighted in favor of general principles. The prejudice toward 36. Copy of Statue of Liberty,
fixed orders is achieved at the cost of repressing local differ- with Eiffel Tower in the
ences of program, structure, fonn , and culture. Affiliative background
relations, by contrast, typically exploit possible connections
tha t occur through vicissitude. They cannot be predicted by
the global systems of organization present in an)' single uni-
fied organism. ~n,en whole systems of geometric description
and organization break down. seemingly unnatural connec-
tions between disparate elements emerge. The introduction
mto architecture of fonns that are "protogeometric," or
without exact measure, presents such an opportunity.

Robert Venturi's paradigmatic duck is a possible multi-

plicitous body. The duck is founded on sculptural, not-yet-
architectural figures, generall y considered to be in conAict
with structural and pragmatic requirements. ll1c assumed
natural contradiction of the pragmatic by the figural denies
any possibility for a complicitous relationship between deco-
ration and structure. Colossal statuary invites char<lcteriza-
tion as ducks: sculptures-becoming-buildings. The scale of
colossal statuary requires architectural design; yet the com-
plex negotiations among figure, structure, and program are
repressed in favor of an iconic and singular sculptural fornl. In
the case of the Statue of Liberty, the enlargement of the one-

39