masks
i think i mentioned this before, but i couldn't remember if i actually posted the excerpt or not and i couldn't find a post including it so...
i've fallen so far behind my little goal for books this year. still keeping it in mind, but there's little chance i'll change my approach come the end of the year and actually catch up. reading a lot of things, but still in the unfinished pile is Architecture and Disjunction. i know the title sounds scary, but it's been a great read. Tschumi draws some excellent parallels between the evolution of architecture and societal attitudes towards pleasure vs. function. he's included some pretty far-reaching concepts, but the whole underlying theory of the text is driving at the heart of what it is that creates "true" architecture...that being, architecture itself; that being, the creation of space which will compel and enable people to utilize and enjoy it for the purpose it is most suitable - and hopefully designed - for. it is an illusory thing that exists somewhere in the ambiguous lines between it's own form and function.
a predominant undertone in the book is the experience of pleasure, but i found a couple secitons to be particularly good (i've bolded my favorite bit):
"Fragment 7 Metaphor of Seduction - the Mask
There is rarely pleasure without seduction, or seduction without illusion. Consider: sometimes you wish to seduce, so you act in the most appropriate way in order to reach your ends. You wear a disguise. Conversely, you may wish to change roles and be seduced: you consent to someone else's disguise, you accpet his or her assumed personality, for it gives you pleasure, even if you know that it dissimulates 'something else.'
Architecture is no different. It constantly plays the seducer. Its diguises are numerous: facades, arcades, squares, even architectural concepts become the artifacts of seduction. Like masks, they place a veil between what is assumed to be reality and its participants (you or I). So sometimes you desperately wish to read the reality behind the architectural mask. Soon, however, you realize that no single understanding is possible. Once you uncover that which lies behind the mask, it is only to discover another mask. The literal aspect of disguise (the facade, the street) indicates other systems of knowledge, other ways to read the city: formal masks hide socioeconomic ones, while literal masks hide metaphorical ones. Each system of knowledge obscures another. Masks hide other masks, and each successive level of meaning confirms the impossibility of grasping reality.
Consiously aimed at seduction, masks are of course a category of reason. Yet they possess a double role: they simultaneously veil and unveil, simulate and dissimulate. Behind all masks lie dark and unconscious streams that cannot be dissociated from the pleasure of architecture. The mask may exalt appearances. Yet by its very presence, it says that, in the background, there is something else.
Fragment 8 Excess
If the mask belongs to the universe of pleasure, pleasure itself is no simple masquerade. The danger of confusing the mask with the face is real enough never to grant refuge to parodies and nostalgia. The need for order is no justification for imitating past orders. Architecture is interesting only when it masters the art of disturbing illusions, creating breaking points that can start and stop at any time." (pp. 90-1)
good stuff. i had more but it's later than i want it to be...
i've fallen so far behind my little goal for books this year. still keeping it in mind, but there's little chance i'll change my approach come the end of the year and actually catch up. reading a lot of things, but still in the unfinished pile is Architecture and Disjunction. i know the title sounds scary, but it's been a great read. Tschumi draws some excellent parallels between the evolution of architecture and societal attitudes towards pleasure vs. function. he's included some pretty far-reaching concepts, but the whole underlying theory of the text is driving at the heart of what it is that creates "true" architecture...that being, architecture itself; that being, the creation of space which will compel and enable people to utilize and enjoy it for the purpose it is most suitable - and hopefully designed - for. it is an illusory thing that exists somewhere in the ambiguous lines between it's own form and function.
a predominant undertone in the book is the experience of pleasure, but i found a couple secitons to be particularly good (i've bolded my favorite bit):
"Fragment 7 Metaphor of Seduction - the Mask
There is rarely pleasure without seduction, or seduction without illusion. Consider: sometimes you wish to seduce, so you act in the most appropriate way in order to reach your ends. You wear a disguise. Conversely, you may wish to change roles and be seduced: you consent to someone else's disguise, you accpet his or her assumed personality, for it gives you pleasure, even if you know that it dissimulates 'something else.'
Architecture is no different. It constantly plays the seducer. Its diguises are numerous: facades, arcades, squares, even architectural concepts become the artifacts of seduction. Like masks, they place a veil between what is assumed to be reality and its participants (you or I). So sometimes you desperately wish to read the reality behind the architectural mask. Soon, however, you realize that no single understanding is possible. Once you uncover that which lies behind the mask, it is only to discover another mask. The literal aspect of disguise (the facade, the street) indicates other systems of knowledge, other ways to read the city: formal masks hide socioeconomic ones, while literal masks hide metaphorical ones. Each system of knowledge obscures another. Masks hide other masks, and each successive level of meaning confirms the impossibility of grasping reality.
Consiously aimed at seduction, masks are of course a category of reason. Yet they possess a double role: they simultaneously veil and unveil, simulate and dissimulate. Behind all masks lie dark and unconscious streams that cannot be dissociated from the pleasure of architecture. The mask may exalt appearances. Yet by its very presence, it says that, in the background, there is something else.
Fragment 8 Excess
If the mask belongs to the universe of pleasure, pleasure itself is no simple masquerade. The danger of confusing the mask with the face is real enough never to grant refuge to parodies and nostalgia. The need for order is no justification for imitating past orders. Architecture is interesting only when it masters the art of disturbing illusions, creating breaking points that can start and stop at any time." (pp. 90-1)
good stuff. i had more but it's later than i want it to be...