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Our world is different fromthat of the OlgyaysI read with great interest DavidLeatherbarrow and Richard

Wesley’s essay on the Olgyay brothers ( arq 18 .2 , pp. 167 –76 ), whose inuence on my generationof architecture students wasconned to Victor Olgyay’s Design with Climate – and that withinthe context of technology, notthe studio. Bioclimatic designhas always sat very comfortably

within Modernist functionalism,as maintaining a metabolicequilibrium in buildings isobviously a function but it was,and continues to be, thought ofas a separate category to ‘designproper’, in spite of constantattempts down the decades topersuade architecture schoolsto stop separating the two.The Olgyays’ writings sufferedfrom the pernicious division inarchitecture between ‘culture’and technology, i.e. those whocan, do architecture; those whocan’t, do technology. If the Olgyaysdid have any inuence on theinclination of architects to thinksimultaneously about form andenvironmental performance, it waslargely limited to the converted,those who already understoodthat the pedestrian workings ofa building’s metabolism couldserve as a stimulus rather than animpediment to design.

And why not, if we’re looking back, Le Corbusier? Surely it wasn’t so much that ‘the workof the Olgyays cast a shadow oninternational Modernism’, asthat the work of Le Corbusiercast a shadow on the Olgyays:‘Le Corbusier’s architecturein particular […] provided theOlgyays with a catalogue ofelements that could bring the

body into equilibrium with the

letters arq . vol 18. no 3 . 2014 197

letters

Performance and style

Reservoir thinking

environment’. Le Corbusier’smany and varied experiments,

for example the Ministry ofEducation in Rio de Janeiro (withOscar Niemeyer and Luis Costa),are testament to the plasticpossibilities of environmentaldesign – provided, as ever, it’shandled by designers with talent.

On the other hand, the Olgyaysaddressed the nuts and bolts ofenvironmental design in a way LeCorbusier didn’t, and revisitingthem allows one to neatlyavoid the linguistic, technicaland aesthetic complexity thathas developed since around

bioclimatic/ environmental/green/ sustainable/ resilient/ newmaterialist architecture. Digitalmodelling, smart materials,the question of what ‘comfort’means in terms of levels oftechnology and controls deployed,arguments over what to express

architecturally and why, and amuch greater cultural awareness

of the volatile relationship between the built and naturalenvironments have moved thediscussion on from that state ofinnocence in which the buildingenvelope does the work andthe work is clearly dened insimple gestures like the brise-soleil. Today, technology hasdeveloped to the point wherethe building envelope can again

be ignored and bioclimaticexpression suppressed withoutcompromising environmentalperformance, if that suits theclient and/or architect better.

In response to this greatercomplexity, there are nowarchitecture practices perfectlycapable of achieving the requiredsynthesis of bioclimatic designand ‘design proper’ in a varietyof ways, some mainstream, some

doi : 10.1017/S1359135514000542

arq (2014), 18.3, 197–203. © Cambridge University Press 2014

1 Screen patterns. From: Victor Olgyay, Design with Climate: Bioclimatic Approach to Architectural Regionalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), p.64

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arq . vol 18. no 3 . 2014 letters98

experimental, for example: Aedas London, EcoLogicStudio,Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios,MVRDV, Proctor-Rihl Architects,Sauerbruch Hutton, T. R. Hamzahand Yeang. The list is, happily,long and international, withpractice far ahead of academia.Though as stylish as they wererigorous, the Olgyay brothers arenot the model for the furtherdevelopment of an aestheticallyexpressive, environmentallycompetent architecture. Our

world is too different from theirsfor their architectural solutionsto be anything but a small part ofa vastly more extended catalogueof explorations and debates.

susannah haganLondon

Susannah Hagan is Research Professorat the School of Architecture, RoyalCollege of Art

When buildings don’t speakPeter Zumthor: guru, shamanand phenomenologist. From

where does this reputation arise– the buildings, the man or histhinking? The architect says whathe does, or may do what he says.There’s the evidence of buildingsheld to speak for themselves intheir authentic concreteness.Like any others, they are onlyrelatively accessible – the interiorsthat are experienced becomerepresentative, while the externalappearance of housing andinstitutional buildings retainsonly a blunted sense of the soughtafter ‘atmosphere’. We rely onphotographs, drawings and wordof mouth, while acolytes assumethe unmediated materiality ofhis projects rings true, regardlessof his writing, thinking, lecturesand conversations. Mediationfogs a celebrity architect’s

work, heightened ironically byZumthor’s insistent and contrary

fervour for the concrete.The monographs are expensive,substantial and partial.Photographs (especially by Binetand Danuser) and representative

drawings affect our view ofindividual projects. Evocation:illumination and shadow; thenotionally tactile art brut sketchesof the Thermal Baths at Vals; softpencil perspectives; indicativedevelopment drawings, or renedplans and details – all imbricate

what we think of as a ‘complete’picture of each work (of art).

The ‘Topography of Terror’competition stands out inZumthor’s oeuvre as un-built, thedrawings mute in the contextof a landscape implicated in theHolocaust. The dead weight ofrepresentation or its absence,

building as memento mori,precludes reassuring parallels

with the materiality of the early work of Herzog & de Meuron, thethematic preoccupation withslatted enclosures or the theme ofmaterial authenticity. This site isnot Zumthor’s familiar territoryand one highly contested. In theBerlin Jewish Museum, at theconclusion of Libeskind’s zigzagmuseum corridor the book ofnames speaks louder than theexpressiveness of his building.

Claudio Leoni’s paper ‘PeterZumthor’s “Topography ofTerror”’( arq 18 .2 , pp. 110 –22 ) isimportant for it lls a signicantlacuna and dares to theorise aZumthor project beyond theSwiss context (well covered bySpier and Davidovici). Before this

year’s magnum opus, two earliermonographs published by LarsMüller and A+Udocumented his

work, but only until 1997 whenhis competition-winning entry

was rst published. In the formerit is innocently sandwiched

between an earlier mountaincable-car station project and a laterproposal for a casino in Lindau.One had occasional news of theinauspicious track record of theBerlin project, an act of restitution

which, if not acting directly asa memorial, was conceived asrestorative in its institutionalprogramme.

One was aware that the onsetof construction had stalled,

with legal and nancial issuesshrouding the project. A thirdsubsequent competition producedthe eventual building (andlandscape) completed in 2010 and viewed with some distain assanitising a site directly associated

with the security apparatus of theNazi Reich. Leoni instructivelymaps out the tangled, later post-

war attempts to confront itsinvidious history, illustratingthe aborted construction,demolition and erasure ofZumthor’s linear project: its

2 Catalogue of Shading Devices. From: Victor Olgyay, Design with Climate: Bioclimatic Approach to Architectural Regionalis m (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), p.83



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service towers, foundations,and rails for the constructiongantry. In conclusion he discoversa memento, remains ‘on site’of the prefabricated concretestructure, juxtaposed with theforceful image of the demolitionin progress. It is revealing thatGerman intellectuals arguedfor retaining the incompleteconstruction as a ruin, evidenceof ambivalent attitudes to the site,

while international architects,professionals all, looked for thecontract to be completed.

Leoni’s text, indebted to JamesE. Young, examines the projectas a form of counter-memorial.He introduces Martin Heidegger(hardly an innocent protagonist)and Jacques Lacan’s theories, inorder to interrogate the sensitive

juncture between Zumthor’shabitual aesthetic concerns andthe inhuman politics – otherwise Landscapes of the Metropolis of Death. In that book Otto DovKulka the ‘historian’, turns toreect on his repressed childhoodmemories of Auschwitz – a divide

bisecting subjective memory andobjective history. Saul Friedlanderconfronts the same issue inhis thoughtful contributionto Disturbing Remains (‘History,Memory and the Holocaust’). Hesituates the changing perceptionand understanding of succeedinggenerations in the context of theneed to ‘review’ yet also ‘evoke’

what was beyond description, while addressing the repression ofthe historical record.

Zumthor aspired to create areective space in his building,seeking not to ‘represent’ but tocreate a threshold on the site,incorporating its ‘contaminated’ground and above which helocates accommodation for theDocumentation Centre. Historiansare given short shrift for insistingon didactic explanation, ratherthan accepting that the site andexhibited documents ‘speakfor themselves’ as effectivelysynonymous with the authenticityhe seeks for architectural formand materiality. This conceptionis characterised by a rhetoricalexcess, or ‘density’, of constructedenclosure. Whether presented inthe stereotomic or lattice form,elided in the proposal (as alsoin the ligree brickwork of hismuseum in Cologne), GottfriedSemper lurks at the margins.His claims regarding the textile

analogy are one thing, butmaterial excess tends to produceconicts about status and cost.

Zumthor’s threshold wasinitially characterised as a linear

hall where documents were to beexhibited on raised ‘lecterns’, justas the building itself ‘stands’ abovethe site. Unlike Libeskind, whoattempted to integrate memorialrepresentation and museumdisplay in the geometry and voidsof his Berlin Jewish Museum(a currency he subsequentlydevalued), but like Eisenman

with his grid, Zumthor followshis own tropes: aspiring tomaterial authenticity; a reective‘atmosphere’ and the art of the‘real’. A romanticism addressedin Terry Eagleton’s Ideology ofthe Aestheticconfronts Theodor

Adorno’s strictures: To write poetry after Auschwitz isbarbaric […] Absolute reication[…] is now preparing to absorb themind entirely. Critical intelligencecannot be equal to this challengeas long as it connes itself toself-satised contemplation.(‘Cultural Criticism andSociety’ in Prisms)

While he later moderated thisopinion, it remains an unavoidable

benchmark against which the validity of aesthetic rhetoric, andthe art of reection, is registeredin buildings associated with theHolocaust.

Leoni instructively traces howthe expectations of the 1990 competition incorporated thelegacy of the earlier campaign of1979 . Temporary constructionshousing an open-air exhibitionremained ‘on site’ until 2010 .

Aspects of this ‘austere’ provisionand the exposure of the site as anopen wound, remain present inZumthor’s proposal, epitomised

by what Leoni terms ‘reacting bynot reacting’. Signicantly thearchitect’s explanation changesover time from effective to affectivedescription, and to nally a senseof valedictory vindication.

The building was originallyconceived in Zumthor’s laconic

text ( Peter Zumthor Works: Buildingsand Projects 1979–1997, 1998 , andelsewhere) as a naked ‘purestructure, speaking no language

but that of its own materials,composition and function’: layeredfrom prefabricated constructionas a ‘constructed object ofabstract composition’; predicatedon environmental efciencyand ‘visibility’, and justiedcontextually as ‘architectureintermeshed with topography’.This could equally describe the

building eventually realised

by the Aachen practice Heinle, Wischer & Partner in 2010 . Almostnothing was said of the primaryspatial enclosure, with its earth/gravel oor, exhibited documents,

reective atmosphere, and thestereometric scale and emptinessso clearly delineated in soft pencil.

Having won the competition alater explanatory text publishedin A+U (384 , 2002 ), set asidethe historical resumé offeredpreviously, preferring to focus onthe incursions of ‘nature’ withinthe ruined terrain of the site. Therelation of Zumthor’s building tothe ground, bisecting two existingpiles of rubble, was presented asif therapeutic acupuncture (oncolumns like ‘needles’) in theform of a double-layered fencedenclosure, otherwise a textile-like‘tracery’ or a ‘weaving of posts’.Contradictorily he also claimed the

building would be ‘clamped’ to thesite: the relative external visibilityof the interior, and conversely thesite from inside, was presented asall-encompassing. This modiedthe ‘windowless appearance’and ‘ample visibility’ mentionedearlier in the ‘competition’ text.The sharper, darker and populatedperspectives in A+U projectedmoiré-like glimpses in elevation,emphasising the ‘interiority’ of thethreshold viewed in perspective.Reections on the narrow stripsof glazed inll would, however,have obscured this much-vaunted‘transparency’.

The new monograph ( PeterZumthor 1985–2013, 2014 ) reiteratesthe earlier texts but employs adifferent vocabulary inevitablylaced with self-justication,defensiveness and regret. Theso-called ‘bar’ structure (earlierdescribed as Vierendeel trusses)takes on a new connotation of‘staves’ and ‘intervals’ (elidingtimber framing and musicalnotation). The pure structure maynot have been ‘meant to symboliseanything’ but the shibboleth ofacquired meaning is expanded byambiguity: needles, bars, posts,uprights, staves, framework or

girder, tracery or woven textile.Steven Spier suggests the structureis ‘trabeated’ but this is not strictlypost and lintel architecture. Thescale and repetition of thesecolumns or pillars remainsredolent of the Neoclassicalarchitecture erased from the site,at odds with the claim ‘to inventa building which would resist allexisting typologies’ ( arq , 5 .1 , pp.31 /32 ).

Zumthor argues the fenestrationalludes to fencing, but therelationship to the ground is stolid

and a vestigial cornice occursat the culmination of the glassinll. Livio Vacchini’s gymnasiumat Losone ( 1997 ) is similar butmore explicitly Classical. Inside,



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Zumthor evokes an etherealatmosphere but concedes outsidethat the weathering of the whiteconcrete will quickly subdue itslightness. However formidablethe precast-concrete structureand rhetorical interior, is this to

build, on an ideologically andontologically dark and physicallyruined terrain, a divergentmateriality epitomised by a soberenlightenment? A linear typologyassociated with a colonnade orstoa, one compressed laterally,expanded vertically, and inhabitedon upper storeys?

The new monograph ( 2014 )includes legible ‘working’drawings. Pillars are housed insockets formed within complex

foundations. A star-shapedconnector conjoins offsetstructural elements (columnsand beams). The railway tracks ofthe horizontal gantry set out a

construction process, envisagedas a tunnel, with disturbingassociations. Just as the connectorsthough not six-pointed starsof David, become so in theimagination. Whatever is manifeston a memorial site will beinterrogated for its connotation,however incidental or contingent.Zumthor admits that the ‘barstructure’ ‘will become a symbol’,

just as despite his best intentions,ultimately, the exhibition is‘mediated’ by the building ( arq 5 .1 ,p. 36 ).

The geometric parti of Heinle, Wischer & Partners’ building setsout a problematic relationship

between the archaeology of theHolocaust and a remnant of theBerlin Wall. In the Bauwelt (16 ,2010 ) building study, the openingillustration is an aerial view, wheretemporary exhibition screensand accommodation still occupythe margins of the building site.

An interview with Jürg Steiner,architect of the temporary pavilionconstructed in 1990 , follows.Complementing the sheltersprogressively improvised over thesite excavations, it was demolishedas a ‘barrack’ construction in 1997 .The ‘rough’ temporary exhibitionpersisted, however, integratingthe ‘traces’ below ground withexplanatory panels from thepavilion. One cannot blame the‘normalisation’ of the site onthe architects from Aachen – therubble mounds were removedpreviously, and without Zumthor’sapproval.

Leoni refers to Heidegger and

Lacan’s thinking in seeking tointerpret Zumthor’s ambivalentstance, but is inclined towardstheoretical ‘vindication’.Heidegger posits that the essence

of material objects is disruptedin their everyday use, andconfronting this incompatibilitypromotes reection on theirphenomenological qualities.Similarly Lacan’s concept of the‘real’ hinges on a psychoanalyticalunderstanding of three levelsof experience: the symbolic, theimaginary and the real associatedrespectively with language,perception and a condition

beyond language. Lacan’s ‘returnto the real’ is proposed as visualconjecture in the face of trauma,seeking to integrate the real withthe symbolic. Leoni, like Lacan,regards such reconciliationas being beyond the boundsof reection, identied withHeidegger’s ‘questioning of things’.But is the negative dialectic inZumthor’s thinking so differentfrom Libeskind’s voids whereemptiness provokes thought andmanifests absence? In Leoni’s view,Zumthor circumvents symbolism:‘embodying the problem of thenon-representational’. But just asLibeskind repeated his symboliclanguage out of context, soZumthor’s formal conception isintrinsic to his wider work. Leonirecords the demise of Zumthor’s‘outstanding project’ noting thatits unconventional nature requiredthe unconditional support of theclient and the various agenciesinvolved, whereas the boot isordinarily on the other foot. Is thisnot inevitable in any contentiousprizewinning project? Formalautonomy and material densitycome at a cost, whether pragmaticor ideological.

One inevitably projects themateiality associated withZumthor’s built work onto thedrawings for his unbuilt project,assuming a material presencenot necessarily present. Leoni isinclined to make assumptions

based on what Zumthor saysrather than what he draws. IrinaDavidovici notes in her comparison

with Herzog & de Meuron in Formsof Practice, that the polaritiesof artist or craftsman architectare reversible – maintaining a‘continuum’ between abstractthought and tangible reality,

better expressed as an ‘oscillation’ between polarities. Leoni speaks insimilar terms of the relationship‘between transparency andopacity’, dependent on relativeconditions of illumination andthe reectivity of white concrete

and glass. Drawings published in A+U (384 , 2002 ) suggest somethingelse, that an oscillation would beproduced by the movement ofpeople appearing, in a ickering

3 The concrete stair towers of Peter Zumthor’s ‘Topography of Terror’ project in Berlin before they weresubsequently demolished

4 Visualisation of the interior of Zumthor’sdesign, showing how the site would havedisappeared from view behind a diminshingperspective of vertical uprights



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partial view, as ghosted presences between the pillars outside; orin gures, fractured by the fallof light, traversing the interior.Far from the autonomousstructure suggested in the emptyperspectives, this agency oranimation projects us beyondthe ambit of a reective space

whose generalised metaphysicalaspiration is a questionableresponse to the trauma engrainedin the site. The display ofdocuments is notably absentfrom the drawings, doubtlessa sign of prevailing tension

between exhibition designers andarchitects.

There are revealing parallels with Anselm Kiefer’s Expressionistart. His painting ‘Der Rhein’ ( 1982 ),peering through a fence acrossthe Rhine towards a Neoclassicalportico on the far bank, mirrorsZumthor’s sketch for his enclosure.There is a complementary lecternpiece ‘The Rhine’ ( 1981 ), and hispaintings and prints presentperspectives of heimatstil atticsand superannuated Classical Nazihalls and colonnades, which arepowerful and critical invocationsof National Socialist culture,seemingly remote from Zumthor’ssensibility. But something of theirgrandiosity adheres at the marginsof the architect’s great hall. Heneutralises these associations,through structural compression,the a-tectonic order of timber

battens rendered in concrete,and the displacement of axiality:‘really nice, calm, soft, spaces’ thearchitect claims ( arq 5 .1 , p. 31 ). Incontrast, the building eventuallyrealised by others is conceived asa neutral ‘information resource’hovering above a basement levelon a site, now surfaced in ahomogeneous layer of crushedgrey stone. Whether this buildingor Zumthor’s project manifestthe neutrality sought is likelypartial, since about this particularcontext buildings themselves areinherently mute and cannot speak.

andrew peckhamLondon

Andrew Peckham teaches architectureat the University of Westminster,recently co-edited The RationalistReader and is currently completing

Architecture and its Imprint

‘Reservoir thinking’: 1 or the‘problem’ of contradictionsI have read with much interestthe article ‘The Contradictionsof Participatory Architectureand Empire’ by Tahl Kaminer,(arq 18 .1 , pp. 31 –7 ). The authoruses a well-established methodof argumentation: he sets up anhypothesis, namely, ‘[…] that amajor cause of inconsistenciesand idiosyncrasies in the workof a loose group of politicallycommitted architects is no otherthan Hardt and Negri’s Empire’. Asa good scientist, Kaminer supplieshis readers with all necessarymaterial so that they themselvesconclude that the hypothesis is

well taken and true.

This is, in fact, a goodintellectual exercise that conrmsthe validity of combiningdeductive and inductive reasoning.The author ‘proves’ his hypothesisin a ‘top-down’ deductive process

by deploying a ‘bottom-up’deductive argumentation; a‘specic observation’ regardingthe activities of a loose group isused to infer a ‘general statement’concerning the contradictions ofparticipatory architecture. Thetransition from the ‘observation’to the ‘statement’ is effectuated

by tracing the contradictions of Empire that according to Kaminerprovides the grounding of the‘loose movement in question’.

As the author sets off to unravelthe book’s contradictions, hehimself remains ‘grounded’ toa specic approach to history asthe transmission of ideas and thetracing of inuences.

Kaminer seems well awareof the importance that thecontradictions’ ‘hide and seek’holds for the history of ideas.

Although not interested in the‘hide’ aspect, i.e., ‘to discover from

what point of view contradictionscan be dissipated or neutralised’; 2

he is rather concerned with the‘seek’, i.e., exploring ‘at what levelcontradictions can be radicalisedand effects become causes’. 3 Heactually dismisses the importanceof the book (as lacking theoreticalrigour due to its intrinsiccontradictions 4) only to recognisethe Empire’s effect and turn it intoa cause. 5 Hence, the contradictionshe observes in the statements/practices of the ‘loose group ofpolitical and socially committedarchitect’ are traced back to the

book in which their theoretical

position is grounded.But if contradictions were the‘problem’, then they work well asa ‘cover up’ of important issuesinvolved and never discussed

properly in the article. It is worthreminding here of the doublemeaning of the word ‘problem’,as something to put before oureyes to examine and as a coverup behind which one takesshelter to remain protected. Itseems that by setting up theproblem of contradictions atthe core of his analysis, Kaminercraftily constructs a deviceunder which he takes shelterand his argumentation remainssafeguarded.

Throughout the text, he seemsdetermined to put a straitjacket toa difcult to tame subject-matter.Namely: how can we understandthe intensive presence of adifferent way of doing architecturethat emerged outside the connesof formal education? It was in factmanifested almost as a ‘matterout of place’ and initially ignored,even scorned, by the establishedarchitecture educators andpractitioners alike. And how theinitial threat of contamination wasshiftily twisted around and endedup as an appeasing immunisationof the profession? 6 Can these issues

be discussed or understood bypointing out inconsistencies of aloose group due to inconsistenciesin a book? In other words, canthis article take its readers outsidethe close-circuit of an academicintellectual exercise? This mightappear an irrelevant question atrst but it might give us a glimpseof how an academic article candeect and neutralise importantissues intertwined with its subjectmatter, and could turn ourattention to the ways informationis circulated and knowledge isproduced.

Leaving aside Empire andits painstaking analysis ofcontradictions, let’s turn tothe thorny problem of the‘loose group in question’ andits contradictory statements/practices. What could have beenthe implications if the author,instead of working within thehistory of ideas to identify causesof contradictions, had chosen totake up the challenge to considercontradictions as ‘objects to bedescribed for themselves’? 7 In thelatter case, a detailed mapping ofcontradictions and irregularitiescould provide an understandingof the discursive practice within

which they are constituted. So what do we learn about the ‘loosegroup’, which the author makes

a paradigmatic case in order toinfer his general statement aboutthe contradictions of participatoryarchitecture?

Apart from a few scattered



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names, we learn, in fact, very littleor nothing about the individualmembers or groups that make upthis particular ‘formation’. Weare given scarce and very generalinformation on few gatheringsin which the individuals/teamsparticipated. The readers areimplicitly expected to know, orit is taken as granted, that theycan easily get information on thenames of individual/groups orinstitutions; the author makesthem stand as the representativesof another way of doingarchitecture, for they already fall

within the ‘distribution of thesensible’.

Kaminer’s loose group was, fromthe beginning, accommodatedinstitutionalised in internationaluniversity master-classes and

biennales; it was the alternativeto the star individual architectsthat were quickly going out offashion, especially after the 2008 real estate crash in the US andthe nancial crisis that sweptoptimism away and took manycountries by storm. The casestudy that opens the article as aparadigmatic case of politicallycommitted architects was noneother than an internationalmaster class at the BerlageInstitute. Thus the participatorymovement Kaminer describes wasnormalised and operated withinsafe connes. To make this ‘loosegroup’ stand for a ‘movement ofparticipatory architecture’ is afrivolous and rather problematicapproach to start with. It takesmore time and effort to discernthe ‘invisible’ agents of a different

way of thinking about architectureand its practice who didn’t, andstill do not partake in this specicsetting of the ‘distribution of thesensible’. The nancial crisis thattook many countries by storm,inevitably asked for a rethinking ofpolitical and ‘social’ issues and ledto the emergence and proliferation

of various groups and activities.The author rightly detects within his ‘loose group’, whateverthat is, the revival of the ’ 68 radical approach which ‘failed

previous generations ’, he pointsto contradictions in mixingradical and neoliberal viewsand refers to an initial critical

but naïve moment that wasquickly corrupted and turnedinto nuanced positions andprofessionalism. It is telling thatKaminer chose to comment onthe work of just one member ofhis loose group of ‘politically andsocially committed architects’at the very end of his article; hementions the ‘vertical gymnasium’generic design project (repetitivelyapplied to different contexts andcities) by Urban-Think Tank (U-TT),and nds it difcult to ‘identifytheir proposition as more “social”than any other architecturaldesign of our era.’

Just to remind here, that the U-TT ofce is run by Professor Alfredo Brillembourg andProfessor Hubert Klumpner whoalso hold the chair for architectureand urban design at ETH; mostof their professional projectsare conducted with students inthe ETH design studio setting. 8

U-TT acquired fame by winningthe 2012 Venice Golden Lion fortheir Torre David project. Thisentailed the documentation ofa former half-nished nancialtower owned by the Brillembourgfamily which has been turned intoa vertical squat in the centre ofCaracas, Venezuela. The U-TT workcelebrated informality and AlfredoBrillembourg was crystal clear

when he formulated his views on‘city retrotting’ in the followinginterview:

Have you ever heard that lots ofcities use interim solutions beforedevelopment later came to amore sophisticated stage? Whatdo you think happened in Lower Manhattan? That was squattingmy friend. Lower Manhattan wassquatted with all the artist lofts. There were illegal squats; they setup electricity illegally. What did it

become? The hottest area in all of New York. They later got evicted.What I’m saying is just thinkabout it as an interim use.

Our ideas and notions of

property in use are way tooarchaic, [from the] 19th century.We’ve got to come up with more exible systems that do not equateto socialism or anything like that, just equate to realities of our cities.

Who’s got the capital to buythat tower and retrot it with a ve-star hotel and ofce? I don’tknow, maybe someone from aChinese bank or something can doit […] that could be a solution. Butthen with the payments they betterbuild these guys housing. 9

And guess what? On 22 July2014 , Reuters reported that the ‘eviction of 3 ,000 squatters fromthe Tower of David is proceedingpeacefully’ and the squatters ‘are

being provided with new homessouth of Caracas’. 10 The next day,

U-TT uploaded a statement thatthey closely follow the news ofthe Chinese investment and theeviction process. 11 Cities havealways been in a condition ofux, and it seems the work of the

U-TT succeeds in facilitating oraccelerating the pace of change. Bymaking the squatting conditionstand out, and showing the poor’senjoyment of informal economyand breathtaking views fromtheir makeshift ‘informal’ homes,

U-TT was successful in attractingthe Chinese investor who paidthe squatters to leave the centre.Informality though is the name ofthe game, either for the poor orfor the rich, and it can be sold asdesign with local social concernsthat serve the nancial interest ofglobal operations.

In the autumn of 2013 , withintheir ETH design studio, U-TT‘struck a deal’ of some hundredthousand Euros to set up aproject named Re-activate Athens:101 Ideas. In crisis-ridden Athens,the amount paid to U-TT by theOnassis Foundation in Greece

was rather a provocation. AlfredoBrillembourg looked withcontempt at the rich eld ofindependent initiatives, collectivesand organisations which didn’tconform to his ‘political’ ideals ofrecombining Marx and Friedmanin retrotting Athens. He was thusunsuccessful in securing a local‘cover up’ organisation to fakethe appearance of a bottom-upapproach. 12

Alfredo Brillembourg had noproblem, however, getting cheaplocal labour. In addition to his fee,he had asked for and was given afully equipped ofce furnished

with ‘dying for their one minuteof fame’ young unemployed Greekarchitects. The ofce in the centreof Athens operated under privatesecurity guards. U-TT created a

5 Left: Urban-Think Tank Vertical Gym, Caracas. Right: Urban-Think Tank proposal for aVertical Gym in Amman



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sterile environment where thelocal cheap labour force hadprearranged meetings/events,held discussions with like-mindedfellows or conducted interviews/questionnaires with selectedrepresentatives of the ‘run-down’categories of Athens inhabitants

who were asked to produce 101 ideas for reactivating Athens. 13 The project’s intention was toprovide a bottom-up like glossto a highly disputed project; Re-activate goes hand-in-hand withthe Re-think Athens project whichaims at the creation of a new citycentre by turning a main artery ofthe city into a pedestrian zone. 14

An ‘exodus’ of the Athenian poorinto the periphery is, however, afar more complicated issue than it

was in the case of Torre David.How can we understand

the current highly visible andpromoted architecture practicesthat masquerade as bottom-up‘social’ activities and create afalse impression of standing infor a movement of participatoryarchitecture? To discuss thereasoning of Urban-Think Tankand other similar cases we mightneed to eschew the type of‘reservoir thinking’ that detectscontradictions and inconsistencies

where there might be none. Another way to conduct

theoretical research might be needed; one that does nothold us captive in the quest forexplanations and the tracingof contradictions back to theirorigins. Then we could becomelike Agamben’s contemporaries, 15 able to discern a paradigm shiftunfolding. We might observe thatour cities have already changedand segregation has alreadyhappened. What would be ourconception of the urban – ifany – and of architecture theoryand practice if we dared to lookat urban nomads settling asmonads wide shut? 16 To put itdifferently, if we leave aside thestandard conceptual apparatusof architectural categories of‘space’, ‘public’, ‘participation’ andtheir apparent current ‘state ofuidity’, we could possibly discernan ongoing accumulation of self-enclosed urban devices designedand produced by and for capturingthe resources of their context

without giving anything back.Instead of discussing the

contradictions of participatoryarchitecture, it might be worth

approaching contradictions asthe side-effect of an emergingpotential for agency in thecurrent agglomeration of organic,inorganic, human, non-human,

technical and technologicalmatter and matters. At that point

we might start our training inquestioning and searching beyondthe conditions of visibility thatdetermine (or blind) our choices oftopics and case studies.

maria theodorou

Leeds

Maria Theodorou is a foundingmember and director of the School of Architecture for All (SARCHA) since2006 (www.sarcha.gr) and Senior Lecturer and History and Theorycoordinator at The Leeds Schoolof Architecture.

Notes1 . Paraphrased here the title of the

lm Reservoir Dogs, whichTarantino ‘explained’ in aninterview, by saying ‘[…] it’s moreof a mood title than anything else.It’s just the right title, don’t ask me

why ’. See: [accessed on19 .9 .2014 ].

2 . Michel Foucault devotes Chapter 4 to discussing contradictions. SeeMichel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge(London: Routledge,1972 ); especially, contradictions

within the history of ideas, p. 151 .3 . Ibid.4 . It is worth noting the difference

between Kaminer’s approach to Empire’s contradictions andRancière’s discussion ofcontradictions related to Empire’s concept of the ‘multitude’. Whilethe former transforms the effectinto a cause, Rancière’s analysisaims at an understanding of the‘discordant accord’, as heeloquently puts it. See JacquesRancière, ‘The People or theMultitudes?’, Dissensus: on Politicsand Aesthetics ( London and New

York: Continuum, 2010 ).5 . He writes: ‘ Empire can therefore

be seen not as unfolding apolitical theory, but as the symbol

which can enable the politicalarticulation of the protestmovement.’

6 . Maria Theodorou, ‘Architectureand Economy: the Ethics ofEmpowerment’ in L. Stergiou(ed.), AAO: Ethics/Aesthetics ( Athens:Papasotiriou), pp. 141 –63 .

7 . Foucault, op. cit.8 . Ibid.9 . Scott Cartwright and Jenny Lynn

Weitz-Amaré Cartwright interview

with Alfredo Brillembourgabout Torre David and thefuture of the Global South,available online: [accessed on 19 .09 .2014 ].

10 . Reuters, Venezuela Tower of Davidsquatters evicted, available online:

[accessed on 19 .0 .2014 ].

11 . See: [accessedon 19 .09 .2014 ].

12 . See: [accessed on 19 .09 .2014 ].

13 . See: [accessed on19 /09 /2014 ].

14 . See: [accessed on19 /09 /2014 ].

15 . Giorgio Agamben, ‘What isthe Contemporary?’, What Isan Apparatus? and Other Essays( Stanford: Stanford UniversityPress, 2009 ), pp. 39 –54 .

16 . As Richard Scofer puts it, ‘[…]de prendre enn au sérieux laconception baroque de l’ individu,imaginée par Leibniz dans saMonadologie, comme une unitéhermétiquement close trouvantau fond’elle-même son rapporta la totalité’. Richard Scofer, LesQuatre Concepts Fondamentaux de l’ Architecture Contemporaine (Paris:Norma Editions, 2011 ).

Illustration creditsarq gratefully acknowledges:

Atelier Peter Zumthor & Partner, 4Princeton University Press, 1–2© Ulrich Schwarz, Berlin, 3

Urban-Think Tank (U-TT), 5

Letters for publication should besent to:Adam [email protected]

The Editors reserve the right toshorten letters

Erratumarq is sorry for an error that creptinto the previous edition, no. 18.2 .The caption to gure [ 2 ] on p. 159 inChris L. Smith and Sandra Kaji-O’Grady’s paper should read:‘Double-helical stair at the Chateau deChambord, Loir-et-Cher, France’. Thisimage is credited to: Flickr CreativeCommons, Gwen. [accessed on 3 April 2014 ].



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