Theory // Materialism, Paul Rudolph, & Politics

MATERIALISM

I've had the privilege at USC to be exposed for the first time to architecture in terms of philosophy. Not philosophy in terms of architecture, which tends to explain design through top-down, esoteric means while glossing over pragmatic intention, but rather a way of thinking that exposes the root  self-organizing generators of cities and buildings as functions of the behavior of people and their various hierarchical structures (government, regulatory agencies, neighborhood councils, etc.). In other words, in many real cases the question has to be asked, where does architecture come from? As opposed to, what is it, or what is it trying to be, or why does it appear a certain way. This approach to understanding architecture holds great appeal for me, as I am strongly interested in the connection between life, particularly American life, and the built environment.

[Manuel de Landa, trying to communicate his theories to architects...]

I'm currently waist-deep in an intensive two week seminar with Manuel de Landa which focuses on this topic. For those of you who aren't familiar with him or his work, he's not an architect, but an artist-philosopher who has written a few books questioning the traditional interpretations of history (1000 Years of Non-Linear History) and analyzing the structures and material flows of society, as well as several essays on a host of other topics I'm not really versed on. Architecture schools like Columbia, Pratt, UPenn, and USC have latched onto him because his theories carry a kind of philosophical impetus for parametric design and swarm logic...and I think because he sports a stylish pony tail and several earrings, dresses in all black, sounds like a mix between Ricardo Montalban, Jack Nicholson, and Christopher Lambert*, and presents with an acerbic wit that only a disillusioned architect or someone from New York would find appealing. But that's just my own opinion...

In short, de Landa's explanation of architecture derives from the commitment that nations, cities, buildings, people, and all other elements of what one might consider "society" are parts of whole entities called "assemblages" that can be expressed and defined through statistical data, be altered through parameters (involving spatial boundaries, diversity), are sources of resources and constraints (geographical boundaries and so forth), maintain stable relationships between constituents (through division of labor, social mobility, secularization vs. religion, etc.), and provide legitimacy to bodies of authority (hierarchy, as in a chain of command). Components of cities are categorized by their material (buildings, infrastructure) and expressive (formal) qualities. This short summary doesn't do his rather exceptional catalog of ideas justice, nor can I guarantee its complete accuracy, but the ideas do imply interpreting history through the interactions of these various parts and wholes rather than a linear chronology of events. "Fate" and ambiguous things like "The State" and "The Market" are ignored.

So hidden under very complicated and indirect language is a unique take on why architecture exists and why it is important in the grand scheme of human history. In the way that architects were once influenced by Jane Jacobs, so new architects will be influenced by de Landa and his predecessors. The only difference is that these guys might not ever get to build anything if it looks like the stuff I've seen coming out of this school, but that's for them to worry about. The smart ones will find a way of course. For me, though I've always been grounded in the real and practical and the American, I'm looking forward to learning a fresh approach, and on instant assessment I think de Landa's philosophy has a lot to offer someone like me as well.

PAUL RUDOLPH & NEW URBANISM

New Urbanism is, by definition, a modern--with a lowercase 'm'--reaction against Modernism in the United States. The standard argument against the urban tenets of Modernism consistently recalls the image of Corbusier's Villa Radiuse. Americans have a bad habit of adopting European fashions years or, in the case of architecture, even decades behind their continental conception, as was the case with American modernists. By the late 1950s, as a result of World War 2 and a wave of legislation aimed at evolving the American lifestyle, Modernism in the United States was in full effect. We all know or can at least recognize its physical legacy that eventually became the antithesis on which New Urbanism is based: incredibly complex highway systems, suburban sprawl, public housing projects, uneven distributions of density and income, and deference to the automobile in all matters of infrastructure.

[Interchange, Fort Worth, TX, 1958. A modern city governed by Freeways.]

But what of the stylistic legacy? Though everyone has different tastes, I think it's a lot tougher to aruge with any validity against the aesthetic qualities of the earlier, warmer American version of Modernism, consisting of the work of Louis Kahn and the Sarasota Modernists on the east coast, some guy named Frank in the Midwest, California Modern on the west coast, and even extending to Luis Barragan and Oscar Niemayer in Mexico and South America. They were doing something new and inventive, but with an understanding of scale and proportion that comes from classical training and real-world experience in an environment that had less of an established artistic tradition than Europe. Most of it is really beautiful stuff and is truly inspiring. Modern architecture, aside from things like "scholarships" and "women," is the reason I came to Los Angeles to study.

So what's with New Urbanists? I actually applaud and celebrate their desire to bring back the walkable city, which at one time was based on European colonial standards and is currently exemplified in American cities like Boston, Savannah, etc. We have people like James Oglethorpe and Pierre L'Enfant to thank for that. Additionally, I appreciate the call to redistribute density and income more evenly and effectively so that all people have equal access to amenities and resources, and to develop character in neighborhoods by doing away with traditional zoning practices based on use, etc. But for some reason, New Urbanist communities carry a negative stigma, especially among architecture students like me. Why? Their work is far less offensive than that of devout stylists who work at the same scale, like classicist/antiquitist Leon Krier. I think it still has something to do though with the perception that such developments are "anti-architectural" because form-based coding and pattern languages are too limiting of their creativity.

But the New Urbanist Charter, or manifesto, never explicitly states that architecture must be of a certain style, but that it must respond to the character and traditions of the place in which it is located. and that it must conform to a certain block mass. Fair enough. But since New Urbanism arrived on the scene with a bang in Seaside, which is recognizable as a more "traditional" community though elements of modern architecture are dispersed throughout, and since such developments arise all at the same time instead of gradually like most cities and are built with the standard set of the "materials of the age," these types of developments can come across as cheesy, kitsch, and loaded with silly pastiche. Atlantic Station in Atlanta, though, is an example of a more contemporary urban infill development, and is noticeably less kitsch in its architecture, but is still a tad too referential in its use of form and material. But case studies aside, where was the motivation for this approach to aesthetic? It certainly couldn't be a reaction to the exciting look of California Modern or Googie, whose unique symbology Robert Venturi praised in his book Learning from Las Vegas.

I think the architecture of Paul Rudolph contains at least a part of the answer. He's certainly not as well known as Kahn or FLW, but his contributions to American (and English) architecture are substantial. Rudolph was an influential educator at Yale, a master of the geometries of the 45-45-90 triangle, and his plan-form arrangements are noteworthy for their intense complexity. Though trained at the Bauhaus and a member of the Sarasota group known for light, airy buildings, Rudolph, along with William Pereira in California, is famous as the quintessential figure in establishing Brutalism as the predominant style of modern architecture in the US in the late 60s and early 70s. It is a shame, really, that concrete came to be fashionable just as the golden age of American modern architecture was fading, because it was through the heavy-handed use of this material that Brutalism really deserved its name.

Rudolph is responsible for some beautiful buildings but cannot absolve himself of this stigma. See: Yale School of Architecture Building. His works of the time, as with most Brutalists, were cumbersome and scaleless, and invoked feelings of stolid permanence rather than the dynamic energy of the previous decades. Other architects known for more graceful works also fell into the trap: E. Stewart Williams, Gordon Bunshaft, Marcel Breuer (who actually was celebrated for it: Whitney Museum), IM Pei, James Stirling overseas and others. This style was especially popular with the US Government, in part because I think it connoted authority in a particularly frightening and subjugating way. Some truly repugnant buildings from this time still remain; the J. Edgar Hoover Building near the White House is one, Boston City Hall is another. Even Bunshaft's Hirshhorn Museum, arguably the most imaginative of all Brutalist buildings, still drips with extreme gravitas. Truly the ziggurats or pyramids or the Babylonian gardens of our age, except without the mystique or wonder. To the pictures!

[Yale School of Architecture, New Haven, CT. Paul Rudolph. Controversial.]

[Boston City Hall, Kallmann McKinnell & Knowles. Ouch!]

[J. Edgar Hoover Building, Washington, DC. Charles Murphy. The Man! Solid.]

[Towers, Philadelpha, PA, I.M. Pei. Nothing interesting about these buildings at all.]

[Unknown, Boston.]

[Palm Springs Museum of Art, E. Stewart Williams. Seems to work okay in the desert.]

[Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC, Gordon Bunshaft / SOM. Minimal? Or Maximal?]

I think it is this Brutalist aesthetic, which in addition to representing authority also has connections to generic, soulless corporatism, to which New Urbanism is reacting. Most American modernism had character; Brutalism did not. It is a primary mission of New Urbanism to reestablish this character. Remember in the 60's and 70's** it was also not groovy to be cool with The Man, with the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam goin' down, and Brutalism was the apparatus with which he kept our New Urbanist brothers down***. So by the late 80s after brown-glass monstrosities started appearing Duany and Plater-Zyberk had clearly had enough.

[Super Fly, New Urbanist sympathizer?]

POLITICS OF ARCHITECTURE

Architecture in this country is closely regulated by the government in several capacities. Zoning laws govern use, while other laws dictate safety and accessibility. It would be interesting to study**** this relationship historically, perhaps in the manner that de Landa suggests. A list of influential legislation over the last century might look like this:

Urban Renewal Act (1948)

Federal Highway Act

American Civil Rights Act (1964)

American Disabilities Act

New York Zoning Laws (1916)

Euclid, Ohio vs. Amber Realty

Occupational Health and Safety Act (1970)

Fair Housing Act (1968)

There are likely countless more, these are the ones I could come up with off the top of my big head.

And for some reason, I now can't stop singing the "Politics of Dancing" by Re-Flex (1983)

We got the message
I heard it on the airwaves
The politicians
Are now DJ's [architects????]

The broadcast was spreading
Station to station
Like an infection
Across the nation

Well you know you can't stop it
When they start to play
You gotta get out the way

The politics of dancing
The politics of ooo feeling good
The politics of moving
Is this message understood

We're under the pressure
Yes we're counting on you
That what you say
Is what you do

It's in the papers
It's on your t.v. news
The application
It's just a point of view

Well you know you can't stop it
When they start to play
You gotta get out the way

The politics of dancing
The politics of ooo feeling good
The politics of moving
Is this message understood

The politics of dancing
The politics of ooo feeling good
The politics of moving
Is this message understood...

That's all for now...

-JD

*If this reference makes sense to you, you are as deranged as I am, and that is problem. 

**As if I was alive.

***I recommend watching cop shows from the period, you get a good sense of what The Man was all about. Ya dig?

****Actually it would be really dry and boring.