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Surface effects: Borromini,Semper, Loos

Andrew Benjamin University of Technology, Sydney, Australia

The argument in this paper is that surface should be understood neither as a merely struc-

tural, nor as a merely decorative aspect of building. Rather, the creation of surfaces (interiorwalls or facades and so on) organises a programme which allows for a reading of the space

of architecture. The latter formulationthe space of architecturehas a double register. On

the one hand, it refers to the specific architectural works, to particular buildings, and how

they effect and affect the subject. On the other hand, it makes a broader, theoretical

point about the way that architecture is conceived as an effect of the possibilities inherent

in the materials used in the making of surfaces. The argument is advanced through an

engagement with work by Borromini, Semper and Loos.

Surface/theory

Within architecture, the surface figures as both an

historical and a theoretical concern. As an intro-

duction to the specific engagement with Borro-

mini, Semper, and Loosall of whose work will

play a pivotal role in this recasting of the surface as

a concept within architectural theorya more

detailed consideration needs to be given to a

concern with the surface in the context of architec-

tural theory.1 Three elements guide this approach to

the relationship between theory and the surface. All

are integral to the operation of the architectural.

In the first place, there is the definition of architec-

tural theory. It needs to be understood as an

engagement with issues arising from the practice

of design. Practice has to be given as great an exten-

sion as possible running from issues delimited by

pedagogy to those whose concern is with the

detail of structures and the nature of research.

Within practiceunderstood in this extended

sensethese specific issues will have autonomy

because of such a positioning. Secondly, integral to

a theoretical engagement with architecture as a

practice is the recognition that architecture is

necessarily bound up with its means of represen-

tation. (These means figure as much in the pro-duction of images as they do in form creation

itself.) This does not entail that architecture is iden-

tical with the image of architecture. Indeed the

opposite is the case. What it does mean however

is that drawings, diagrams, computer images,

three-dimensional print outs, models, etc., all form

part of the focus of architectural theory. To the

extent that the means of representation change

there will be subsequent changes in how the prac-

tice of architectural theory works. There needs to

be a certain reciprocity since moves within the

means of representation should be accompanied

by changes, or the very least accommodations, on

the level of theory. (For example, theory cannot

remain indifferent to the move from Cartesian

based CAD systems to animation software programs

such as Maya.)2

The final element concerns the relationship

between theory and history. The conjecture here is

that there is an important difference between the

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# 2006 The Journal of Architecture 13602365 DOI: 10.1080/13602360600636099


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objects that comprise the history of architecture and

the presence of the same objects within architec-

tural theory. While there will be an important

relationship between history and theory, the signifi-cance of this distinction should not be overlooked.

What is at issue is the possibility of the history of

architecture having a productive presence within

the practice of design. Again, the argument will

be that it is only by construing the history of archi-

tecture theoretically that it will then become poss-

ible for that history to play a role in particular

modalities of practice. In regard to this final point

it will be essential to distinguish between history

as a specific discursive activity and what will be

called a theoretical history. The details of theseelements need to be taken up. While there is the

temptation to treat each separately there are

important connections between them. The point

of departure however has to be with the definition

of architectural theory.

If the theoretical is defined as an internal

conditioninternal to architectural practicethen

it cannot be readily separated from the possibilities

that obtain for form creation. There are different

ways in which it can be engendered. As an activity,

form creation can be guided, for example, as

much by programme as it can by the abstract activity

in which volume (or form) is the consequence of the

deformation of a grid. Equally, form creation will

always be connected to what a certain set of

materials will allow and what others will preclude.

To the extent that form and materials are involved,

then the geometries within which they are articu-

lated are also central. Once it can be assumed that

the relationships between materials, geometries

and forms are not given in advance, then this has

the twofold effect of delimiting a space in which

architectural research can be done. At the same

time it begins to define the ambit of that research.In addition, and this is the second point, it locates

not just the space of theory but more significantly

its necessity. Precisely because relationships have to

be established and decisions made, this opens up

the need for forms of deliberation that are continu-

ally informed. What occasions the introduction of

theory is the presence of a space opened by a

relationship whose formal presence cannot be deter-

mined in advance.

History, as generally understood, involves the

location of an object within a field of activity inwhich the object has meaning because of that

context.3 Writing history involves showing in what

way the field individuates the particular object;

although equally, it is concerned with the way the

field is maintained by the particulars reference to

it. As such, history can only insist on particularity

to the extent that what continues to be held in

place is the network or field. This field occasions

the objects meaning (and thus the objects presence

as a cultural or historical sign). While such a position

enables an account of innovation to be given, and

thus an account of how an object may interrupt a

field of activity, perhaps to the point of redefining

it, what cannot be given within such a setting, is

an account of the object that insists both on the cen-

trality of innovation and on the object of innovation

as able to cause an iterative reworking of the

elements of history. The historical question does

not concern the possibility of another form of inno-

vation, or a reworking of the given, in order that

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a further innovative potential be released. The latter

possibilitythe destruction of the field of meaning

in order to occasion innovationbecomes the defi-

nitional concern of theory. The preoccupations oftheory, in such a context, are with the effectuation

of the particular as architecture. In regard to the

objects of history what this means, as has been indi-

cated, is their capacity to be given another context

in order that a potentialunrecognised by the

founding contextcan play a productive role in

form generation. This is a possibility that emerges

if the hold of historyas defined by a strict

contextualismis released.

The immediate question that has to be addressed

is the position of the surfacethe surface both as anexisting architectural reality and as a theoretical

conceptwithin these large formulations of the

concerns of architectural theory. To ask the ques-

tionwhat is a surface in architecture?is to ask

as much about the practical implications of how

surfaces are used and materials are deployed to

create them, as it is to ask about the generation of

surfaces on computer screens. This latter possibility

means that surfaces can be granted complex his-

tories internal to the construction of the surface

itself. More significantly, it will allow for the logic

that generates the surface and the one that

enables change to be registered to be one and the

same and thus internal to the surface as an operative

field. The key move here however, and it is the one

that necessitates that a theoretical history of the

surface be writtenthis essay being a contribution

to that historyis that such a form of production

will give rise to a conception of the surface as that

which will have an effect rather than simply being

the consequence of the process of its creation.

Once a surface can effectie, it can bring

something aboutthen it can be understood as

that which works to distribute programme. Theeffect will not be instrumental; rather it will be

inherent in the operation of the surface itself. (This

will, of course, transform the way the term

surface is understood.) Once the surface can be

construed either as that which distributes program-

mable space, or functional concerns, or the

elements of architecture (eg, walls and columns),

then what is at work is a form of production;

hence the surface effect. While such a conception

of the surface has only arisen since the use of

animation software in the design process, it willallow a history of the surface effect to be con-

structed. Such a project would have the salutary

effect of robbing the present of its claim to pure

novelty by allowing a retroactive history to be

constructed. It will be a history of the surface

written fromindeed made possible bythat

which occasions and defines the present. This

occurs in the precise sense that the moments

within this retroactive history are given coherence

by the concerns of the present and those concerns

are the issues that arisetodayfor and from

the practice of design. While the nature of this

conception of the historicaldecontextualisation

allowing for a theoretical historydemands further

clarification, at the very minimum what has been

provided is a point of departure.

Procedurally what will be argued is that the roles

of the surface in Borrominis San Carlo alle Quattro

Fontane, in Sempers writings on cladding as well

as his discussion of antiquities especially Trajans

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Column and finally in Adolf Looss Haus Muller, while

at one level having little in common, on another level

have an important affinity. That affinity is con-

structed retrospectively. It has to do with the wayeither the writings or specific buildings are con-

cerned with the surface. What is important there-

fore is to begin to establish how each of these

moments, when run together, creates part of the

history of the surface effect. The lack of immediate

similarity marking each of these domains means

that a different way into the question at hand

the surface that effectshas to emerge in each

case. In regards to Borromini what will become

important is the way that the move from an exter-

nally regulated systemin this instance the onegiven by the analogy between the body and the

buildingto one whose regulation is internal

marks the presence of the surface effect. The

move to the surface will be accompanied by a

decontextualising move in which both the internal

and external aspects of the building as well

as certain drawings by Borromini come to be

repositioned as objects within a theoretical history.

In the case of Semper the key opening moment,

at least for this project, is his discussion of the wall

in The Four Elements of Architecture.4 If the walls

original meaning is identified as spatial enclosure,

it is then possible to distinguish between a structure

that is simply load bearing and the wall. (The former

may be no more than that which supports the realis-

ation of spatial enclosure.) Once this conception of

the walltransformed into a concern with the

surfaceis interarticulated with Sempers refusal

of the distinction between ornament and structure,

then surface can begin to be identified with

concerns delimited by programme and function. At

the minimum it allows the elements of architec-

turewall, floor, column, corner, etc.to be an

effect of an operative or generative conception ofthe surface. (Hence a surface defined in terms of

potentiality rather than simple literal presence.)

This positioning of Semper will take place in terms

of an initial juxtaposition with Ruskin for whom

architecture is the adornment on any edifice. It

is not as though Semper returns to the edifice by a

refusal of the identification of architecture and orna-

ment. His position is far more radical. What will be

argued is that he refuses the terms set by the oppo-

sition.5 As a result architecture can be thought

beyond the opposition structure/ornament. Thisrefusal should now be seen as a radical opening in

architectural thinking, one resisted by so-called

post-modern architecture whose aims were for the

most part explicable in terms of a reintroduction of

that very distinction.

Looss significance, initially, can be detected in

those writings which try to identify the futility of

ornamentation. The distancing of ornamentation

needs to be read, at least in part, as a move to the

centrality of the surface. With Looss there is an

important addition. Programmatic concerns are

brought about by the interrelation of surface and

volume. Starting with Sempers redefinition of the

wall as that which effects spatial enclosure, the

project is then to establish in what way the cladding

within Looss Haus Muller, moves the wall away from

reductive identification with the literal wall.6 More-

over, when it becomes possible to locate the actual

functional operation of the building in the cladding

(Bekleidung), cutting the Raumplan in order to

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allow for circulation and programme, then it is

equally possible to allow for the presence of the

effect of the wall without there having to be a

literal wall.7

Even though Looss claim that theinterior of the house should reveal all, while the

exterior remain mute, is well known, the force,

perhaps the potential created by the Haus Muller,

cannot be reduced to this one authorial comment.

The silence of the exterior cannot be enforced. It

has an ineliminable potential. (A potential that

decontextualisation can release.) What this means

is that the interiors presence can be described as

functionally indifferent to the exterior of the build-

ing. Not only does this create two different sur-

facessurfaces held by the literal wall though notreducible to itit also allows those surfaces

programmatic possibilities that are capable of a

relationship of indifference. (The literal wall would

then need to be understood as that which carried

two surfaces.) Freed from their initial structural or

tectonic constraints actual walls are able to function

as surfaces that effect. In other words, they are able

to work as distributors of programme rather than as

markers of putatively neutral spaces. As a conse-

quence wallsnow as surfacescan become

effects of the surface.

In sum, what Loos achieves is a practical and

workful conception of the surface, by having

freed the surface from its reduction to the literal

wall (even if it is one whose potential was not

fully explored in his actual buildings). Nonetheless,

there is a significant opening. From within the

purview of this argument the vocabulary of walls

and floors has to be reworked such that what is

given central place is the surface. Whether a

surface is also a wall or a floor becomes a consider-

ation that has to be integrated into its presence as a

surface. They become moments of fixity on a

surface, moments that are usually the consequencesof programmatic constraints. Instead of its being

attributed a static quality, the surface will henceforth

have a dynamic one. While this can be generalised in

terms of the surface effect, the details will always

need to be examined. Only then is it possible to

occasion that move in which what becomes import-

ant is the surface as a process and therefore as a

locus of activity. Process and activity will always

work to displace the surface from an historically

determined context.8

Once it can be argued therefore that, from theposition of theory, Loos allows for the intersection

of surface and volume to distribute programme,

the surface takes on a particular quality. It becomes

the abstract or diagrammatic presentation of that

which opens up fields of activity. The productive

sense of the surface gives rise to a range of research

projects that are determined by the nature of the

relationship between the diagrammatic and its

ensuing architectural representation. From within

this framework the surface will remain an abstract

possibility. The release of the potential that abstrac-

tion contains, and the manner in which that release

occurs, or more problematically is occluded, is the

act of realisation.

Opening: the body

Architecture has relied on models or analogies in

order to define its activity or delimit its field of oper-

ation. From Vitruvius up until the recent past one of

the most pervasive analogies has been the body.9

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What will be suggested here, in order to open up the

place of the surface, is that not only have develop-

ments in architecture overcome the hold of that

analogy, but also that freedom has allowed areturn to earlier architectural forms. Such a return

means that these forms can be reinterpreted. In a

sense architecture can develop another relation to

the body by its having been freed from a relationship

based on an analogy between the building and

the body. Consequently, it is possible to take up,

from within architecture, issues that pertain, for

example, to the disabled body or the gendered

body precisely because issues that relate to embo-

died existence are no longer positioned by the

analogy between the built and the body. The bodyhas not been reconfigured and the nature of the

analogy changed. Rather, the body can be reconfi-

gured because the analogy has been overcome.

Part of the move to the surface accompanies this

repositioning of architectures relationship to the

body.

Of the many formulations of the relationship

between body and architecture the one found in

AlbertisOn the Art of Building captures the nature

of what is involved.10 It is not just that beauty is

defined in terms of the internal adequacy of pro-

portion, the internal divisions of the human body

also provide the measure for the building. Of the

many passages that could be cited one of the

more apposite is the following:

The shapes and sizes for the setting out of

columns, of which the ancients distinguished

three kinds according to the variations of the

human body, are well worth understanding.

When they considered mans body, they decided

to make columns after his image. Having taken

the measurements of a man, they discovered

that the width, from one side to the other, was

a sixth of the height, while the depth from navelto kidneys was a tenth.11

What is important in this passage is twofold. Not

only is there the strength of the analogy, moreover,

measurement and the geometry of proportion are

structured by it. Measure is always defined exter-

nally. Not only is the body a given, it provides

accepting a symbiosis between building and

bodythe ground of construction and evaluation.

Part of the force that can be attributed to the

analogy is this structuring potential. Fundamental

to the process was an essential anthropocentrism.This is not merely the pursuit of humanistic

valuesalthough that may have been the case

but the identification of the generative element of

design within an analogy in which architecture was

always determined externally. When architecture

moves to the modern perioda movement, which,

as is being suggested, sanctions a retrospective

reinterpretation of the traditionthen the external

control will have vanished. The body has not been

deferred if only to be reincorporated as a concern

within architecture, more significantly an external

control, a control structured by analogy (an instance

of which is the body), has given way to a funda-

mentally different way of construing the generative

dimension of architecture. That dimension has

become internal to the object. The object is rede-

fined in terms of its self-effectuation as architecture.

A clear example, as has already been suggested, is

the way that the Raumplan intersects with the role

of cladding in Looss Haus Mullerto construct the

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object as architecture. (This is, of course, a position

that will be pursued in greater detail.)

If architecture has been freed from the analogy of

the body, how then does this freedom open up theconcerns of the history of architecture? Surely it

could be argued that while this freedom may have

some impact on future projections, the conceptions

of symmetry that appeared in earlier buildings, or

plans, defined symmetry in terms of the order of

the body, or if not the body then nature. (In both

instances what determined symmetry was external

to built form.) Even if that argument could be sus-

tained there is no need to limit interpretations in

this manner. To the extent that elements of the

history of architecture can be differentiated fromtheir insertion into a given history, the possibility of

reinterpretation and thus reactivisation occasions

the emergence of another object. As has already

been indicated, such a connection is only possible

because the objects potential will not allow the

insistence of history to still that possibility.

In order to trace the potential in the work of the

surfaces comprising Borrominis San Carlo alle

Quattro Fontane (16381682) a detour will be

taken.12 Instead of proceeding directly to the detail

of Borrominis work, two sculptures by Bernini will

set the scene. The second, David (1623) is by far

the more significant. Nonetheless, the move from

the slightly earlier sculpture to this one needs to be

understood as the move from a work defined by a

clear sense of front and therefore of sides and

behind, to one that resists all the dimensions of fron-

tality by working as a continual surface. In architec-

tural terms, the possibility demanded by Palladio, in

which, if the Villa Rotondabegins to define an ideal

and where part of the ideal is the symmetry of the

front, would cede its place to an internally genera-

tive system in Borromini. This movement is present

within the Bernini sculptures. Frontality is overcomeby an internally regulated system that individuates

specific elements. They are the after-effects of a

system, rather than being incorporated into a total-

ity whose organisational logic leads in a different

direction; ie, to the object as symbol. While symbo-

lism, both in architecture and sculpture, is almost

impossible to avoid, there is a real difference

between the attribution of a symbolical quality and

the necessity of a symbolic presence derived from

the objects relationship to an external order of

organisation. The argument is not that sculptureopens up architecture. Rather, in holding to the

specificity of sculpture it then becomes possible to

examine how a distinction between stasis and move-

ment is at work within this particular field. As such,

what can then be asked is what the architectural

correlate to this distinction would be like.

Bernini. The processDavidDavid

As a point of departure it should not be forgotten that

withDavidwhat is at work is a body (Fig. 1). A sculp-

tured body, and yet as sculpture it can be interpreted

as the move from the body understood as proportion

towards a body understood as a dynamic process

of internal relationships. Moreover, it is a dynamic

process that is neither one of simple movement nor

one of unending oscillation. What is at work is the

movement of what will be called the material infinite.

While this term will need to be clarified, at this stage it

should be understood as identifying a process in

which finite moments are the effect of the process;

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a process that is potentially infinite. As such materiality

has a certain immateriality as its condition of existence.

This sculpture involves a marked development

from earlier works such as The Rape of Proserpina

(16212). What defined that particular work was

its static quality. That quality is brought about by

the relationship between the planted left leg of

Pluto and the force of Proserpinas left hand against

his face. The skin above her abductors left eye is

being forced up while all the weight is borne by his

left leg. Therightleg is raisedindicating thepossibility

of movement and yet the relationship between the

eye and the left leg indicates a stationary position.

All that is being marked is the moment. Ovid insists

on the simultaneity of seeing, loving and abducting

(Metamorphoses, V.395). The sculpture is of thatpoint in time. The movement of hand, facial skin

and legs involves a careful balance. As such it is

mannerist in orientation, although more importantly

as a work it can be said to be defined by the tem-

porality of the instant. What is seen is that

particular instant. Each of the elements comprising

the relationhips that define the sculpture can be

viewed. There is a real extent to which the work is

complete in itself. The completion delimits what

is seen. The relationship between presentation and

the instant defines the work in terms of both rep-resentation and expression. Neither claim can be

made of David. This will be the reason why David

is an architecturally more interesting sculpture.

Moreover, although this is a contention to be

argued,David, in procedural terms, opens the way

towards Borrominis extraordinary facades and

interiors. More, particularly David, despite being a

body, leads away from the analogy between body

and building. Even though there is a body, at work

here is a conception of form that is no longer

anthropocentric in nature.

What marks out David as a site, and therefore

what delimits its particularity, has initially to do with

a conception of relatedness that is no longer held

by the instant. Time figures in a different way. The

insistence of theinstantcedesits place to thetempor-

ality of process. What this conception of time brings

with it is work. Work is both object and activity. Once

the temporal and active dimension comes to define

the ontology of the object, then while a work is

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Surface effects:

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Loos

Andrew Benjamin

Figure 1. David,

Bernini, (1623), marble.

(Rome, Galerie

Borghe` se). From Bernini

Toutes Ses Oeuvres auMonde, Figure 4, 4th

edition (Rome, Fratelli

Palombi srl, 1998).


9/36

present, the presentation has to be defined in terms

of an interiority that eschews any reduction to the

instant. In other words, it is defined in terms of a

set of internal relations whose work comprises thework. While those relationships have exteriority

insofar as the object has material presence, the

exterior is the presentation of pure interiority. And

yet, the relations comprising this interiority have to

be defined in terms of dynamic relations rather

than the interconnection of static points. What will

emerge therefore is another way of construing

internal relationships.

One of the most remarkable qualities of the sculp-

ture is the impossibility of standing in front of it as

opposed to behind it. Equally, it is not possible tostand to one side and see it from that side rather

than being either in front or behind. No matter

where the viewer stands the sculpture stands before

the eye. In a sense this is because Davids body

is turned such that in being ready to release the

catapulta rope containing a stone stretched

between his handsa circle has been constructed.

What is viewed is that circle. However, to insist on

the formal circularity of the object would be to

miss both the counter balancing of forces as well

as the dynamic relationships that the circle con-

structs (or equally, of which the circle is the effect).

While it may be necessary to provide a semiology

of the sculpture in which the relationships are des-

cribed, the points being described maintain a differ-

ent sense of relationality than one understood as

mere connectedness. The work is not the connec-

tion of points. Nor is it that points connect

dynamic lines. Points would only ever be after-

effects of lines. A dynamic quality predominates.

What is maintained is a pure interiority that con-

tinues to present itself. What is presented, while

having a singular quality, is not reducible to a

simple singularity. Within the process of relation itis always possible to construct a point of view,

however that point is the effect of the process.

Equally, it cannot be identical with the object. This

is not a claim about relativity but about the

process of pure internal relatedness. The infinite in

question is that which has already been identified

as the material infinite.13

Davids right foot is on the ground. The back of

the left is raised with the toes of that foot taking

the weight. The body is neither turning nor not

turning. The tension created by the feet instantiatesprocess. Process here is movement. The rope of the

catapult is held tight. The hands are pulling and yet

at that moment the catapult is still; a still point

within the process that marks the catapult being

held and which is, at the same time, the process of

its being released. His loins are wrapped by a

folded garment and around his shoulder there is a

pouch held in place by further folded material. The

folds of the material are not, in this context, what

is interesting. The significance is that they cannot

be differentiated from the work of the body. The

wrap of the material over his loins forms part of

the bodys unfolding. It neither flows with the

body nor against it. It is neither on the body nor is

it separate from it. Body, material, pouch, sling

all form part of the process. The error would be to

see the body as adorned and therefore the body as

central. Indeed, it can be argued that what defines

the sculpture are the relationships between the

bodyand by body what is meant is Davids literal

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bodyand what could be taken, albeit wrongly, as

secondary, ie, material, sling, pouch, etc. On an

abstract level it is possible to see the sculpture

and it should be remembered that there is a poten-tial endlessness that comprises this seeingas a

surface. Different elements are not placed on a

single surface. The sculpture is the endless articula-

tion of relationships in which what is individuated

can be attributed specific qualities. In other words,

on the level of description it is possible to distinguish

the material around the body, or connected to it,

from the body itself. Nonetheless, such a formal

distinction would miss the way they form part of a

continuum involving neither adornment nor orna-

mentation. Rather, these formally distinct elementsform part of a continuous surface. Moreover, the

only way the distinct elements are able to be distinct

and to be viewed as separate is because they are

interarticulated within, and as, a continuous

surface. Such an argument would be consistent

with the claim made above that points are the

after-effects of lines that work.

What then ofDavids body? The body becomes the

site of infinite relatedness. In refusing to privilege any

one positionand thus by extension any descrip-

tionit becomes a finite point, the condition of possi-

bility for which is the infinitude of relationships. The

latter is the work of the material infinite. Internality,

therefore, is given priority, and then, as has been

argued, individual elements are individuated by the

work as a site of process. The object is no longer the

totality of individual parts precisely because

individuation always occurs as the effect of a process.

The elements are effected by the works organisational

logic. What this means is that the sculpture, as an

activity, has to be seen as a surface. However, it is

not a surface on which things are placed, rather, in

sculptural terms, it is a surface that effects.

San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane

Borromini died in 1667. At the time of his death the

facade of San Carlo was not yet finished. (The

building, except for the facade, was finished in

1641. The facade was completed in 1682.) The

remaining plans, however, indicate the extent to

which the existing building follows the original

drawings. Steinberg, Blunt and Wittkower, amongst

others, have provided detailed descriptions of the

building. What is important here is to see the build-

ing within what could be described as anotherhistory of the curvilinear. Fundamental to the incep-

tion of the Baroque was the distinction between the

static and the dynamic.14 Accepting that develop-

ment, while essential, is to repeat a commonplace

until the nature of the movement in question is

characterised. Even then, it should not be thought

that there is simple consistency within all Baroque

architecture. However, in this context what has to

be noted is the path that stems from a consideration

of BerninisDavid. What is opened up is complexity

within movement. In regards to San Carlo what

needs to be emphasised, as a beginning, is the dis-

tinction between a conception of movement that

involves illusion and one that defines movement by

the continuity of counter-measures. The latter

realises complexity. It is not as though the two are

in direct opposition or that they do not overlap or

even reinforce each other. However, what is signifi-

cant is the way their difference provides particular

openings.

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The dome consists of a texture of geometric

shapescrosses, octagons and hexagonsthat

move towards a naturally lit opening which rises

up towards the motif of a bird. Not only is the eyedragged up through the rich array of forms, it is

then tempted furthertempted towards the infi-

niteby flight. As the eye soars the infinite is

captured as much by flight as it is by the geometry.

The infinite in question is the infinite of illusion.

The interplay of symbolism and a vanishing point

maintained by the intersection of geometry

and light creates a feeling of infinite movement

towards a divine infinite. While the illusion is import-

ant, it is not as though infinite transcendence can

have material presence other than as illusion. Thisis the restriction of this conception of the infinite.

As Descartes argued in the Meditations, what

could not be represented was the infinite nature of

God. There is however another conception of the

infinite.15 Here the infinite is not linked to represen-

tation but to the infinity of pure becoming. Within

the philosophical writings of the period the most

exact formulation of this position is found in

Leibnizs conception of substance as force (vis). Sub-

stance is never static nor transcendent, it is un etre

capable daction (a being capable of action).16

Activity defines substance. Its continuity is its contin-

ual self-realisation and thus self-effectuation. Move-

ment therefore is an infinitude of relationships. In

following Leibniz as opposed to Descartes an archi-

tecture of illusion is put to one side. The question

to be addressed therefore concerns the architectural

correlate to this conception of the infinite. It should

be added immediately that this conception of the

infinite can have material presence. The infinite

is linked to relation. Baroque architecture is not

Leibnizian. The relation has to do with how the infi-

nite is understood. Architecture is not philosophy.

The importance of the distinction lies in the natureof the formers material presence.

One of the central elements defining the internal

operation of the church is the movement of bays,

columns and walls. While each element has a dis-

tinct quality, there is an interconnectedness that is

neither arbitrary nor the work of chance. Their inter-

relationhip is held by an entablature that divides the

overall building into three sections. The physical

presence of the entablature has the effect of

emphasising the columns even though it is an

emphasis that is dissipated, formally, once it isrecognised that they form part of the walls which

in turn form the bays since the latter cannot be dis-

sociated from the walls articulation. There is a

complex pattern in which even though the elements

are separate, in that they have either ornamental or

functional specificity and as such can invite and

maintain particular programmatic possibilities, they

are nonetheless articulated together. If the walls

were understood as a continuous line, then the

measure and counter measurethe movement of

the curvilinearwould have become a surface. In

other words, what is at work here is not a straight

line that has become curved. Measure and counter-

measure continue to yield openings that become

locations within, and as, a surface.17 A similar oper-

ation is at work in the facade. While the status of the

facade is contested it is, nonetheless, worth noting

the way in which the curvilinear is once again a

series of measures and counter measures that yield

space. The curvilinear does not maintain space,

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rather it is part of the process of spacing. In the

process, and in the potential endlessness that

marks the presence of the curvilinear, it is possible

to locate the work of a material infinite. Finitudeunderstood as the individuation of elements

always takes the infinite as its condition of

possibility.

While it is possible to emphasise that the building

as a totality is a complex negotiation with differing

ordering systems, the most powerfully argued

interpretation of San Carlo is Steinbergs for whom

the building is an attempt to integrate oval, cross

and octagon. He wants to see this three-part

system reiterated throughout the church as a

whole.

18

On one level it is impossible to deny theacuity of this observation. Nonetheless, it is still poss-

ible to complicate this particular description. Again,

this complication should not for a moment be seen

as diminishing its historical importance. Indeed, no

attempt is being made here to deny that the building

can be understood as the continual attempt to

reconcile symbolic, theological and philosophical

elements that characterised the seventeenth

century in general and the Baroque in particular.

The complication in question can be demonstrated

by concentrating on a specific drawing by Borromini;

namely Albertina 175 (Fig. 2). The importance of the

drawing is that it generates a further opening. What

allows it to be made is the relationship architecture

has to its means of representation. However, funda-

mental to this position is that while those means are

an ineliminable part of architecture, it does not

follow that what is an ostensible representation

has to be read in that way. In other words, represen-

tations can be read diagrammatically. This is the

claim that lines, drawings, in sum representations,

once understood as diagrams, have the capacity

to generate representations but should not be

assumed to be straightforwardly representational.This move introduces into the history of drawing

and architectural representation an abstracting

element that interrupts the flow of history by

linking the abstracting process to the possibility of

a representation having an afterlife. To be

precise, the afterlife is the move from abstraction

to a further representation.

The plan allows two different aspects to be

emphasised. The first would be to show how the

walls and the structure are an effect of the oval (or

ellipse) which is itself part of the internal geometry.The oval is the result of the juxtaposition of two equi-

lateral triangles inscribed within two circles. Whether

itis an oval or an ellipse, the end result is that the line

is present as a result of the internal configuration.19

Moreover, as Steinberg argues, it is possible to see

that the produced line marks out the plan in the

drawing as pulled backwards and forwardsa

pulling and pushing that produces the curvilinear

by the work of the internal configuration. On one

level a movement of this type has to be the case.

However, to the extent that the production of the

line remains central, then an account of the line

will be in terms of that production. Any account

therefore will oscillate between those involving the

history of geometry and in particular the role of geo-

metry in drawing, and more ideologically based ver-

sions in terms of architectural attempts to reconcile

various religious and philosophical positions.20 The

end result is that the line remains secondary to that

which is taken to have produced it. There is another

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possibility, which, while alluding to these accounts of

the line, is not defined by them. Namely, giving

emphasis to the line itself. This means more than

a change in emphasis. Another area of concern

emerges. Henceforth, the interpretive question con-

cerns what is it that the line produces. This

questionone that can be taken to a range of differ-

ent drawings of the planhas to start with what can

be described as the lines density. Density means that

the line is not the single line but the double line

marking, if only as a beginning, an inside and an

outside. The dense linethe line itselfis this

double (perhaps doubled) line. In general terms it is

a line of information.

While accepting that the columns have a load-

bearing function within the overall structure, they

do not stand opposed to the wall. Nor is it that the

columns, which may have been historically separated

from the wall, have now been placed next to it.

Within the confines of the dense line, how is the

relationship between the column and the wall to

be understood? This question cannot be asked

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Figure 2. Borromini:

half plan for the churc

of S. Carlo alle Quattr

Fontane, Rome

(drawing, Albertina175).


14/36

independently of the movement that the line marks

out. While it is possible to account for the movement

of the line in terms of the effect of the founding

internal geometry, it is also true that any account ofthe line has to begin with the recognition that its

movement effects. The curvilinear creates and

distributes internal and external volumes that are

themselves the distribution of programmable space.

Whether that programme is used in one way rather

than anotherie, locating specific functions proper

to the operation of a church, or even places for

statues or ornamentationis not the point. What

matters is that this line has to be understood as

that which distributes volume. In other words, the

volumes (bays) are the effect of the line. At worktherefore is a line that works. This line becomes the

architectural correlate to the surface of Berninis

David. That surface too, needs to be understood as

a generalised production and therefore as a

workful line.

Allowing the line this capacity will account for the

relationship between the column and the wall. What

the line makes clear is that the relationship is no

longer one either of opposition or ornamentation.

If it can be argued that the volumes are produced

by the operation of the linethey are its effect

then it is also the case that both wall and column

are themselves effects of a line. There is no

opposition between column and wall. The line

although now viewed as a surface that individu-

atespresents elements that can at a given

moment and for a specific reason be given the des-

ignation bay (volume) or wall or column. As with

Berninis David individual elements are the after-

effects of a surface that effects. Finally, the absences

of an opposition between column and wall pre-

cludes the question of their relationship. Relation-

ship is concerned with separate definable entities.

Here, they only have a relationship insofar as thesame line produces them.

The drawing is not the building. However, the

drawing cannot be dissociated from the actual

presence of San Carlo. What this means is that

part of its presence is a quality that allows for a

greater degree of abstraction to be attributed to it.

The process of abstraction will allow for the decon-

textualisation. However, this is not a process that

refuses the particularity of the actual building.

Abstraction refers to the inherent architectural

quality of the work that allows italmost in virtueof a form of autonomyto have a life indepen-

dently of its specific historical presence. The dense

line in Albertina 175 works to distribute certain

fundamental architectural elements delimiting, as

part of that process, programmable spaces. The

line individuates these elements; equally, the line

also individuates spaces. What is individuated is

marked by finitude. Hence, the line, precisely

because other instances of individuation could

have occurred, can be understood as the work of

a material infinite.

In regards to the facade the entablature has a

different role from the one it played within the

building. Internally, while having a tripartite form,

it can nonetheless be described as holding two

different orders in place by marking their point of

division. Moreover, the visual power of the entabla-

ture worked to control the eye and thus to regulate

the experience of the building. The facade incorpor-

ates the entablature. Even though it divides it, it is

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also the case that acts of division are part of the

work of the facade. Formally, it consists of convex

and concave lines that delimit spaces (bays). As

with the interior, columns, and ornamentationcannot be differentiated from the facade itself.

In forming part of the facade they cause it to

become, once again, a complex surface. Questions

of addition and ornamentation are not to be separ-

ated from the possibility of their presence as that

which is enacted by the measure and counter

measure of the surface. While it is possible to see

the two parts of the facade as responding to each

other insofar as a concave line on one level is posi-

tioned in relation to a convex line on the other,

there is more at stake. Two elements need to benoted. The first is that the relationship of the

convex and the concave is part of the totality of

the surface. The second point is that the work

of these linesthe work that is the complexity of

the curvilinearis the disclosure of spaces that

allow for programme because they await it. Pro-

grammable space is the consequence of lines that

work.

What Borrominis adventure allows is not a claim

about the modernity of the Baroque or even the

extent to which the concerns of the Baroque could

still play a determining role in design. Such claims

would have to overlook the need to reconstruct

historical periods. The inventing of histories and

the establishing of points of connection occur

because of openings afforded by the present.

What is central to Borromini in this context is the

way San Carlo can be seen as demanding another

account of the generation of form. As an account

it has to involve the movement of matter beyond

the body, precisely because the generation of form

is internal to the object. The limitation of the

Baroque is the way both internality and form were

conceived. The limitation is merely the Baroquesparticularity. In moving from externality and thus

from an anthropocentric architecture, the Baroque

demonstrates the impossibility of architecture

having a forma finalis. The future opened up by

Bernini and Borromini is not to be found in the

detail of their formal inventions. That would be to

reduce those inventions to an image. The future

is allowed by a different repetition, one guided

by a process of abstraction. If what is fundamental to

their work is the operation of a material infinite that

continues to be generative of formcontextually, itoccurs through the operation of a surface in which

elements are individuatedthen as an abstraction

this operative quality is what can be retained.

Once the dense line that characterises Albertina

175 is given priorityin addition it is a line that

once reworked yields the facadethe continuity of

its folds will always have to be arrested. The

cessation of movement is the precondition of

form. Cessation becomes finitude. Finitude can be

equated with architectures material presence. The

precondition allowing for finitude is the lines

potentiality. As has been suggested, materiality has

its conditions of possibility in what was called the

material infinite. The final point that needs to be

reiterated is that the density of this line need not

be literal. Density has to do with the information

that the line distributes.

If there is a limitation in this conception of the line

then it liesdespite densityin the restriction of

relatedness; a relationship that would be linked to

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a sense of productive interruption. An example

would be the way volume and surface may be inter-

connected. While this possibility emerges at its most

emphatic in Loos, it is the writings of GottfriedSemper that will allow, again retrospectively, these

opening considerations of the surface to be taken

a step further.

Ruskin and polychromatic antiquities

In order to position Semperor rather to rework the

force of Sempers positioning of the surfacesa

setting is essential. This will be provided in this

context by looking first at the way Ruskin defines

architecture and secondly at the way Sempers

approach to the surface cannot be separated fromthe dispute concerning polychromatic antiquities

that had such an important historical influence on

the development of architectural thinking in both

France and Germany in the early- to mid-nineteenth

century. While both these attempts to establish a

context may seem too distant from Semper, the

contrary is the case. Ruskins thinking still echoes

in architectural arguments for decorum and the

stylistic determination of context. The discovery of

polychromatic antiquities can be reworked as the

discovery of the surface that was the interarticula-

tion of surface and function.

As has already been suggested the importance of

Ruskins definition of architecture is that it provides

the backdrop against which both the radicality and

the commitment to the form of materialism that

structures Sempers conception of architecture can

be understood. InThe Seven Lamps of Architecture

Ruskin defines architecture as an art that adorns the

edifice raised by man for whatsoever use.21 In this

instance what is significant about Ruskin is not the

argument concerning the use of general symbolism

in architecture, nor is it architectures relationship to

religion and nature. The significance of this defi-nition is that it gives a clear place to architecture.

Working with the definition is essential in order to

see how it defines architecture. The first part deser-

ving attention is the description of architecture as an

adornment. Adorning is always an after-effect.

Jewellery is a form of adornment. The pearl

buttons or sequins sown on a dress can be said to

adorn it. They become an adornment to the extent

they can be differentiated from that on which they

are placed. Such a differentiation is envisaged by

the contrast between adornment and the edifice.Edifice is a description of the object. It is the pure

presence of the objectone that is not given speci-

ficityalthough more importantly does not need to

be given it. The description of the edifice as raised

by man is significant as it locates architecture as a

practice that involves a necessary distinction from

nature, thereby inviting a possible accord with

nature. Architecture is artifice although only in the

sense that it serves human purpose. If the human

being creates, then the question of purpose has to

emerge. (This will be Kants enduring legacy; there

can be no account of creation that works indepen-

dently of the constraint of nature that can escape

a definition in relation to purpose.) To what end

has the human created? If the end cannot be distin-

guished from the edifice (to retain Ruskins termi-

nology) insofar as the edifice will always have had,

and will always have, a purpose, then there is the

recognition of the necessary and ineliminable func-

tionality of architecture. Once the edifice has this

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quality, there can be no question of the denial of

functionality. Purpose is the already-present identifi-

cation of function. The question that has to be

asked however concerns, from within the purviewof Ruskins definition, the relationship between

purpose and architecture.

Answering that question necessitates paying par-

ticular attention to the final words whatsoever use.

It is not just that this eliminates the place of function;

it does this by denying it to architecture and then by

locating it in the edifice. In other words, the force

of the whatsoever use is that function is main-

tained by its being radically distinguished from archi-

tecture. As such the question that needs to be

brought to Ruskins formulation has to concern thepresence of architecture. This is both a question of

almost brute physicality as well as a more straight-

forwardly conceptual one concerning how, within

the formulation, is architecture to be thought.

These questions are related. The presence of archi-

tecturepresence as locationdefines how it is to

be thought. Architecture, from within the position

that is being extrapolated from this definition of

the art of architecture, is located on the surface.

More precisely, and this is the essential point, it is

the literal surface understood as adornment.

The centrality of ornament as the locus of the

architectural has an important history. While not

originating in Ruskin, what is repeated is a sensibility

that locates what is essential to architecture in orna-

ment. In the modern period this conception of

architecture continues to have relevance. Not only

does it define so-called post-modern architecture

as a moment within the history of ornament, it

continues to define the architectural in terms of

the opposition between ornament and structure

(Ruskins edifice). The contention here is that

Sempers writings can be read as a critique not just

of the retention of this opposition but of its definingarchitecture. With Semper architecture is redefined.

While this positionthe redefinitionfinds its most

exact expression in the discussion of style and the

elements of architecturea discussion that will

be taken up in this context in terms of working

through Sempers treatment of the wallhis

earlier writings on polychromatic antiquities not

only set the scene, it is in his discovery of colour

that the already-present relationship between

function and surface come to be expressed. That

expression overcomes the opposition between orna-ment and structure. This is to argue in the first place

that colour is functionalas opposed to simply dec-

orativeand in the second that structure works in

accord with that function. In sum, the interplay of

function and colour overcomes the tradition that

attempts to identify the architectural with the

ornamental.

Sempers intervention in the debate on polychro-

matic antiquities occurred in 1834 with the publi-

cation of his pamphlet Preliminary Remarks on

Polychrome Architecture and Sculpture in Antiquity.

While they are only implicit in the pamphlets argu-

ment, it has to be understood as involving two sub-

texts. The first is an undoing of the Winkelmanian

aesthetic that was concerned with the purity of

form and therefore the retention of ideals as that

which prompted form and which form had to

imitate. At the same time however there was a

general concern with establishing both the speci-

ficity of the modern and more particularly with

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opening up the question of the appearance of the

modern.22 The argument is that a debate as

apparently arcane as one concerning the possibility

of coloured antiquities was in fact a debate aboutthe nature of the modern. The discovery of Etruscan

art not only had the effect of destabilising the nature

of the Classical tradition, that destabilisation meant

that the grounds of assessment and judgement in

both art and architecturethe grounds of

Classicismwere no longer secure.

There were two arguments against the presence

of colour. The first is an archaeological one, while

the second is aesthetic. Clearly, the response to

such arguments is to show through the reports of

contemporary excavations that coloured antiquitieshad been in fact found. And yet, that would not

have been sufficient since there were aesthetic

reasons for holding to the presence of colour

being either a mistake or simply exceptional and

therefore only of marginal interest. Semper sums

up this concern in the following terms; they are

sure that colour applied to sculpture must confuse

the forms and pamper the eye (dass Farben

angewendt auf Bildenerei die Formen verwirren

und das Auge verwohen mussen) (p. 61/p. 239).

Prior to taking up his response it is worth noting

the detail of this objection to colour. It should be

remembered that it is, as it were, the aesthetic

objection and thus one neither checked let alone

overcome by additionalfactualdiscoveries.

While appearing as merely aesthetic insofar as it is

a defence of form, such a position is best under-

stood in terms of forms metonymic links. Once

understood in this sense, the threat to form can be

comprehended as the threat to the continuity of

historical time that allows for forms own repetition.

Form, precisely because it is continually positioned

by the movement between the ideal and the

actual can be repeated ad infinitum. The refusal offormits having become confusedwould be

the concession that allowed this sense of continuity

to have been interrupted. Sempers language in

responding to his own presentation of the aesthetic

response has an important aesthetic register itself.

He argues that colour:

clarifies the form (sie entwirren die Formen)

because colour provides the artist with a new

way to throw the surface into relief. It brings the

eye back again to the natural way of seeing, (Sie

bringen das Auge wieder zuruck auf den naturli-chen Weg des Sehens), which is lost under the

sway of that mode of abstraction that knows pre-

cisely how to separate the visible and inseparable

qualities of bodies, the colour from the form

knows it by those unfortunate principles of aes-

thetics that define exactly the sphere of the indi-

vidual arts and do not allow any excursions into

a neighbouring field. (P. 61/p. 239.)

What is significant about this formulation is that the

defence of colour is given an aesthetic register,

almost in terms of naturalism. Importance here has

to be attached to another aesthetic possibility. That

possibility does not separate colour and form

noting of course that once this position is expressed

in this way the register of form will have changed.

No longer held by the opposition between the

ideal and the actual it becomes the material instance

of form. Emphasising colour, therefore, becomes the

affirmation of the materiality of form. The move is

not simple empiricism. Nor, moreover, should the

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evocation of the material be understood as

suggesting that form has become the empirical

instantiation of the ideal. Rather, it is materiality

itself. As a result of this repositioning there has tobe an accompanying shift in perception. Perceiv-

ingthe use of the eyealters in order to perceive

colour. In Semperian terms seeing abstractly is to

posit a distinction between form and colour. In

other words, abstraction, in this context, means

holding colour and form apart. However, in order

to give such a move coherence it would have to be

grounded, almost of necessity, in a conception of

form that locates particulars within a defining oscil-

lation between the ideal and the actual. As such

form acquires an inherently transcendent quality.The aesthetic response therefore is fundamental.

What Semper is pointing out is a shift in the cat-

egories of how seeing takes place. While it is not

Sempers actual argument, implicit in his position is

the claim that colour has the capacity to overcome

the hold of Classicism. Colour undoes the opposition

between form and the ornamental or decorative.

This development provides the setting in which

Sempers discussion of Trajans Column needs to be

situated. The basis of the interpretation resides in

the column having traces of paint (die Spuren

von Malerei) (p. 67/p. 248). What is significant

about the passage is not just the depth of descrip-

tion but attributing to the column the capacity to

have the effect of spatialityand thus to space.

This effect is explicable in terms of the operation

of colour. What this means, of course, is that

spacing is an effect of the surface.

The figures on the monument stood out golden

against an azure background. The flat reliefs on

the pedestal, too, were undoubtedly given their

proper appearance (waren entfehlbar) through

the rich variety of gold and colour. Only in such

a way could the column be in harmony with therichly coloured and gilded forum, the porphyry

cornices and green marble columns of the

templesas could the bronze statue with the

column. (P. 67/p. 249.)

Leaving aside any lingering hyperbole that may be

evident in the passage, what is clear is that not

only is there an urban coherencespatiality is held

in place and in playit is also realised, for Semper,

by the work of colour. TheColumn, while not strictly

architectural, plays a fundamental role within the

visual coherence of theForum. Coherence is realisedby the accord between the form and the colour. For

Semper, it would be an accord which, once the

debilitating effect of the abstract eye is left to one

side, would have been effective and thus would

have functioned if the eye had perceived the

almost ineliminable reciprocity between form and

colour; ie, their conjoined presence rather than

their separate existence. It would have operated in

relation to the object, the column, then with the

other objects in the field. The latter would now be

understood as an urban condition operating on

the level of affect as well as the structural and func-

tional. Surfaces in this context are as much impli-

cated in questions of form (structure) as form is in

the question of the surface (literal surface) namely

colour.

Semper, walls and surfaces

In one of the lectures given in London during his

period of residence in the city, Semper did not just

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distinguish between Greek and what he termed

Barbarian architecture, he formulated the dis-

tinction in a way that concerns the nature of

architectures material presence. While Sempersgeneralised account is part of an overall attempt to

categorise and detail the practice of ancient archi-

tecture, in distinguishing between the Greek and

the Barbarian, he introduces one of the defining

motifs in his writings, namely a distinction

between that which occurs within architecture and

architectures exteriority.

The Greek ornaments are emanations of the con-

structive forms and in the same way they are the

dynamical function of the parts to which they

belong. They have no other meaning than toexplain the construction forms by analogical

notions, taken from nature itself or from other

branches of art, while the ornaments on the

barbarian monuments find generally their expla-

nations in some historical, local or religious

notions, which have nothing in common with

the part of the building, whereon they are

applied.23

Central then to the Greek is a conception of orna-

mentation. However, it has to be understood as an

explanation of the construction.24 In other words,

it is defined internally to the architectural object.

Admittedly, this occurs via analogy. Nonetheless,

the relationship is structured by interiority. The

barbarian on the other hand involves a conception

of ornamentation in which the additions have to be

explained in terms of symbolic values, which, as

Semper concedes, are always accounted for exter-

nally. The move to the historical, the religious, etc.,

defines these additions in terms of exteriority and

therefore, to use the language of Ruskin, they play

the role of adornments. The move to interiority

not one where form is opposed to ornament but

where there is an already present interarticula-tionbegins to identify the particularity of

Semper. While it is always possible to emphasise

his engagement with ornamentation and even to

construe the insistence on cladding in those

terms, it is more productive to connect architectures

concern with interiority to one with the centrality of

materials. As such what this allows is a connection to

be drawn between three aspects of his project. In

the first instance the importance of the surface

that emerged during the earlier engagement with

his writings on polychromatic antiquities; in thesecond, interiority as a concern with architectures

self-definition given through materials, and finally

his identification of the four elements of architec-

ture. What is important about those elements is

the way they lead, almost inexorably, to establish

the centrality of the wallas surfaceas the focus

of architectural consideration.

The wall figures significantly in the short text pub-

lished in 1851,The Four Elements of Architecture: A

Contribution to a Comparative Study of Architec-

ture. In fact this work set in play the role of the

wall throughout his subsequent writings. It drew

on both his archaeological activities in addition to

some of the conclusions reached during the period

where his overriding intellectual concern was poly-

chromatic antiquities. Semper uses the so-called

elementsthe hearth, the roof, the enclosure

and the mound (p. 102)to account for the

origins of architecture. While these elements are,

to a certain extent, fundamental, they are almost

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Borromini, Semper,

Loos

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inextricably connected to an historicist if not nostal-

gic account of the origins of architecture. The inter-

esting move occurs when Semper begins to trace

the emergence of the wall from the enclosure.Before looking at the consequences of the move

to the wall, it is essential to note that in Sempers

account what is of interest to him is that it involved

the introduction of a technique. It was not just any

technique: the wall fitter (Wandbereiter) as proto-

architect deployed an Urtechnik (p. 258); the way

the wall emerges brings more than just a physical

wall into consideration. The manner in which

Semper engages with the wall is in terms of its pre-

sence as a surface. Moreover, a surface that effects.

This is the position that has to be established. (Reiter-ated therefore is the way the coloured surface was

present in terms of its effect. While colour did not

provide volume, it was colour that allowed Trajans

Column its capacity to create space and therefore

enabled it to have a civic function.)

Prior to taking up the key passage from The Four

Elementsconcerning the emergence of the wall, the

claim announced a few lines earlier that wickerwork

was the essence of the wall (p. 104), needs to be

noted. Its significance is twofold. In the first

instance, it is indicative of the general move within

Sempers writings to preclude the possibility of a sus-

tained distinction between the decorative and the

functional, except insofar as the decorative

becomes evidence not just of function but of the

necessary interconnection of the functional and

the material. Moreover, in the case of wickerwork

what is essential is the relationship between

materials and effect. What is significant about the

claim that wickerwork comprises the essence of

the wall, is that the essential cannot be differen-

tiated from the operation of materials. Not only is

this to insist on interiority, it allows for a link

between materials, and that which demarcates thearchitectural, to have to be thought together. More-

over it can be concluded that what the wall does is

effect spatial enclosure, and therefore the function

of the wallie, to spacecannot be thought as

though it were independent of the operation of

materials. This further accounts for why he states

that wicker work is the essence of the wall. It

involves the effects realisation through the use of

materials. That move can then be abstracted such

that it begins to define the nature of the wall.

Walls, for Semper, cannot be separated from theactivity of spatial disclosure. From a Semperian per-

spective space is not a given that is then divided.

The contrary is the case. Space is a result. Hence,

the wall is that which brings about spatial enclosure.

In sum, space is the result of the surfaces operation.

The detail of his position is formulated in The Four

Elements of Architecturein the following terms.

Hanging carpets remained the true walls, the

visible boundaries of space. The often solid walls

behind them were necessary for reasons that

had nothing to do with the creation of space;

they were needed for security, for supporting a

load, for their permanence and so on. Wherever

the need for these secondary functions did not

arise, the carpets remained the original means

for separating space. Even where building solid

walls became necessary, the latter were only the

invisible structure hidden behind the true and

legitimate representatives of the wall, the colour-

ful woven carpets. (P. 104.)

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The importance of this formulation is that the wall is

moved away from being no more than a structural

element to having a clearly defined function within

an overall structure.25

While for Semper thereneeds to be an accord between the outward appear-

ance of structural elements and the nature of that

function, such a relationship resists any reformula-

tion in terms of a theory of ornamentation. What

has to be opened up is the potential in Sempers con-

ception of the wall.

Sempers project can be understood as the attempt

to identify within the history of architecturespecifi-

cally Hellenic arta principle that could be extracted.

The nature of Sempers relationship to Quatreme` re de

Quincy should inform a contemporary response to hisown work. The value for Semper of Quatreme` res

writings on ancient sculpture is that they provide an

opening. In Sempers terms it lay in their practical ten-

dency. He continues:

In line with this tendency the work does not as it

were parade the form before us as a finished

product according to the lessons of aesthetic ideal-

ity, but lets us see the artistic form and the high

idea (der Kunstform und der hohen Idee) that

dwells within it; it considers and shows how both

were inseparable from the material and technical

execution and how the Hellenic spirit manifested

itself in the freest mastery of these factors, as

well as the old, sanctified tradition. (P. 249/p. 207.)

The significance of the formulation lies in the

differentiation of form from what can be termed

aesthetic ideality. Form and ideas could not

be separated from materials, the presentation of

those materials and questions of technique.

Semper therefore undoes the opposition between

form and idea by incorporating both as material

possibilities. Any vestige of that metaphysical dis-

tinction is displaced by emphasis having been

given to materials and techniques. Once the idea isno longer understood as external, then the building

cannot be understood as the ideas symbolic

presentation. Hellenic style therefore involved an

interrelationship of all these elements. This accounts

for why, in addition, art-form and decoration cannot

be separated. They are, in Sempers terms, so

intimately bound together by the influence of the

principle of surface dressing (des Flachenbeklei-

dungsprinzips) that an isolated look at either is

impossible. (Pp. 252 3/p. 211.)

What emerges from giving centrality to materialsis the possibility of arguing that materials are what

they bring about, what they effect. When Semper

argues that wickerwork was the original wall, it

was because it was the original space divider.

This realisation of division defined the essence of

the wall. Any consideration of the wall therefore

has to do with how materials realise their effect.

This accounts for the move in the same text to the

claim that the wall retained this meaning when

materials other than the original were used (p.

104). (It should be noted, if only in passing, that

the connection is between meaning and materials

and not meaning and symbolic determination.) The

history of the wall therefore becomes the history

of the way materials realise the wall effect. The

wall effect is spatial division, although only ever as

a result. Hence, it becomes possible to question

both the quality of the space produced and the

material creating it since spatial division is produced

(effected) by the work of specific materials.

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Borromini, Semper,

Loos

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There is a further result that should also be noted.

Once it can be argued that the definition of the wall

has to do with spatial enclosure and is not reducible

to the presence of literal wallsa possibility alsoevident in Loos, as will be argued in relation to the

Haus Muller, where the intersection of theRaumplan

and the work of cladding produce volumetric differ-

ence, hence the effect of the wallit then follows

that the wall is not given in opposition to the

floor.26 This point can be extended since if the wall/

floor opposition no longer defines the work of the

wallbut the wall is the wall effect, ie, spatial div-

isionthis will result in the need for a reconsideration

of the corner since the corner is defined by the inter-

section of an already determined floor/wall relation-ship. That reconsideration means that the relationship

between wall, floor and corner can be rethought; a

relationship rearticulated as a surface. Not just a

surface as a flat exterior but also a surface as tectonic

entity; the reciprocity of materials and geometry. Fur-

thermore programmatic demands necessitating that

the elements of architecture have a distinct quality

can locate that difference as individuated by a

surface. Finally, therefore, the function of the wall is

internal to the architecture in question thereby gener-

ating a sense of autonomy, one reinforced by the

move from an externally orientated symbolic

meaning to an internally regulated system of activity.

Furthermore, the wall cannot be thought outside its

relationship to materiality. Sempers work dissolved

the distinction between structure and ornament.

The wall was given an integrity that came from its

definition in terms of the effecting of spatial enclo-

sure while at the same time locating that realisation

in the operation of materials.

Loos: the place of ornament

Looss critique of ornament is well known. However,

it acquires another dimension once that critique is

connected to the work of the surface. Moreover,Loos relates, both implicitly and explicitly, a

concern with the surface to the project of moder-

nity. This emerges strikingly in his discussion of cos-

tumes. Implicit in the argument is the position that

differences in clothing habit are always more than

the register of personal taste. Indeed, they are the

enactment of different conceptions of historical

time. These differences mark the presence of a con-

flict that not only has a determining effect on the

nature of the present, but also yields conflict

as that which identifies the present. Writing of

costumes, Loos argues the following:

I too admit that I really take pleasure in the old

costumes. But this does not give me the right to

demand that he put them on for my sake. A

costume is clothing that has frozen in a particular

form; it will develop no further. It is always a sign

that its wearer has given up trying to change his

circumstances. The costume is the symbol of

resignation.27

This passage can be usefully juxtaposed with the

one advancing the central argument of Ornament

and Crime. What the juxtaposition shows is that

Looss argument is not against ornament as such but

on the role and place of ornament within modernity.

As ornament is no longer organically related to

our culture, it is no longer the expression of our

culture. The ornament that is produced today

bears no relation to us or to any other human

in the world at large. It has no potential for

development.28

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What is being worked through in both passages is

the way forms of material presence are already inter-

woven with issues pertaining to historical time and

thus modernity. The retention of ornament, muchlike the wearing of a costume, is viewed as antitheti-

cal to the way the modern is understood. Ornament,

in this sense, is a vestige. The overcoming of orna-

ment does not give rise either to the positing of

simple structure stripped of ornament or the

recourse to mere form. What arises as a conse-

quence is the surface. Even if the interior surfaces

of Looss Haus and buildings appear to be heavily

ornamented, from a Loosian perspective they are

not. Cladding (Bekleidung) is not ornamentation.

As with Semper cladding operates within architec-ture. Its presence is organisationaland hence

related to programmatic distributionrather than

having a purely symbolic role. Moreover, as with

Semper, there is an important distinction between

walls, understood as load bearing, and what was

referred to before as the wall effect. The effect is

the creation of space. Before pursuing the detail of

the position, it should be noted that the shift from

Semper to Loos is that the capacity of a surface to

effect is located within the operation of architecture

although now architectures operation is itself a con-

sequence of having overcome the need to invest

architecture with automatic symbolic value. The

surface effect therefore is a sign of the modern

both in its overcoming the hold of vernacular yet

at the same time resisting the slide into the ubiquity

of form in which formal presence is thought inde-

pendently of programmatic effects. As a result the

effect of cladding needs to be understood as being

as much a connection of surfaces, function and

modernity as it is the operation of architecture. In

order to pursue how the effect of cladding operates

it is essential to trace the way in which Loos begins

to distinguish between literal walls and the wall assurface in his The Principle of Cladding.29 As with

Semperand thus recalling Borrominispace

(spacing as an activity and therefore as spatiality)

results from the surfaces effect. With Loos,

however, there is an important additional element.

Again, the setting i

Documents

Surface Effects