THE AUTONOMY PROJECT - · PDF filemanfredo tafuri. because architecture is critically impotent in the face of advanced capitalism, tafuri ultimately wants to affirm history’s autonomy

THE CRISIS OF MODERNISM:THE AUTONOMY PROJECT

THE DAY MODERNISM “DIED:” MARCH 16TH, 1972 @ 3:00PM

AN OBSESSION WITH FORM AND LANGUAGE...

AN OBSESSION WITH FORM AND LANGUAGE...OR SOCIO-PSYCHO DESIRE?

AUTONOMY:

AUTONOMY:

+ THE STATE OF EXISTING OR ACTING SEPARATELY FROM OTHERS

+ THE POWER OR RIGHT OF A COUNTRY, GROUP, ETC., TO GOVERN ITSELF

K. MICHAEL HAYS

One should not ask whether architecture is autonomous, or whether it can willfully be made so, but rather how it can be that the question arises in the �rst place, what kind of situation allows for architecture to worry about itself to this degree.

1966

VS

U.S EUROPEROBERT VENTURICAPITALISM

CONTINGENT IMAGESYMBOLISMPOP ART

LONDON/CAMBRIDGEPHILADELPHIAYALE/PENNPRAGMATICINCLUSIVE

NEO-REALISM

ALDO ROSSISOCIALISMIDEAL TYPEESSENCE

CONCEPTUAL ARTMILAN/VENICENEW YORK CITY

COLUMBIA/PRINCETONCRITICALEXCLUSIVE

NEO-RATIONALISM

VS

ROBERT VENTURI

I like complexity and contradiction in architecture - not the incoherence or arbitrariness of incompetent architecture and not the precious intricacies of picturesqueness. I speak of a wider and solider matter: a kind of complexity and contradiction based on the need to consider the richness of experience within the limitations of the medium.

ROBERT VENTURI


I am not intimidated by the puritanical, moral language of modern architecture. I like forms that are impure rather than “pure,” compromising rather than “clean,” distorted rather than “straightforward,” ambiguous rather than “articulated,” allusive rather than simple, perverse rather than impersonal, accommodating rather than excluding.

ROBERT VENTURI



I prefer “both-and” to “either-or,” black and white, and sometimes gray, to black or white.

ROBERT VENTURI



I prefer “both-and” to “either-or,” black and white, and sometimes gray, to black or white.

A valid architecture evokes many levels of meaning; its space and its elements become readable and workable in several ways at once.

LESS IS A BORE

ROBERT VENTURI

Mies makes wonderful buildings only because he ignores many aspects of a building. If he solved more problems, his buildings would be far less potent.

ROBERT VENTURI


�e doctrine “less is more” bemoans complexity and justi�es exclusion for expressive purposes....he [the architect] can exclude important problems only at the risk of separating his architecture from the experience of life and the needs of society.

DYNAMISM OF A CYCLIST 1913

ROBERT VENTURI


�e doctrine “less is more” bemoans complexity and justi�es exclusion for expressive purposes....he [the architect] can exclude important problems only at the risk of separating his architecture from the experience of life and the needs of society.

Blatant simpli�cation means bland architecture.

COMPLEXITY AND CONTRADICTION CRITIQUES MODERNISM’S “FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION.”


COMPLEXITY AND CONTRADICTION CRITIQUES MODERNISM’SOBSESSION WITH “FLOWING SPACE.”


COMPLEXITY AND CONTRADICTION CRITIQUES MODERNISM’SOBSESSION WITH “FLOWING SPACE.”

COMPLEXITY AND CONTRADICTION ARTICULATES DIFFERENCEAND SEPARATION (BETWEEN INSIDE AND OUTSIDE) ON THE FACADE.

RATHER THAN PROJECT ITS SOCIAL, MORAL, AND POLITICAL PROGRAMS OUTWARD, SUCH AN ARCHITECTURE ABSORBS AND SUBSUMES SOCIO-CULTURAL DIFFERENCE INTO ITS DISCIPLINARY CODES (HISTORY) AND MODES OF OPERATION ONLY TO PROJECT IT BACK SYMBOLICALLY AS IMAGE.

ALDO ROSSI

SEEKS THE FIXED LAWS OF A TIMELESS TYPOLOGY (PARTICULARLY WITHIN THE EUROPEAN CITY).

ALDO ROSSI


DEFINES THE (EUROPEAN) CITY BY ITS ARCHITECTONIC ELEMENTS OR CULTURAL PHYSIOGNOMY.

ALDO ROSSI



CRITICAL TERMS THAT ENDOW THE CITY WITH ITS COLLECTIVE “CONSCIOUSNESS” INCLUDE:ARTIFACTS, PERMANENCES, MONUMENTS, MEMORY,AND LOCUS.

ALDO ROSSI




ARGUES THAT ARCHITECTURAL TYPOLOGIES RESIST THE “NAIVE FUNCTIONALISM” OF MODERNISM AND HENCE ITS TENDENCY TOREDUCE ARCHITECTURE TO PROGRAM ANDCIRCULATION IN ITS QUEST FOR COMMER-CIALIZATION AND PROFIT.

ALDO ROSSI




ARGUES THAT ARCHITECTURAL TYPOLOGIES RESIST THE “NAIVE FUNCTIONALISM” OF MODERNISM AND HENCE ITS TENDENCY TOREDUCE ARCHITECTURE TO PROGRAM ANDCIRCULATION IN ITS QUEST FOR COMMER-CIALIZATION AND PROFIT.

ARCHITECTURAL TYPOLOGIES ARE LATENTWITH (DISCIPLINARY) HISTORIES THAT ORIGINATE AND OPERATE OUTSIDE OF ANYPARTICULAR CIRCUMSTANCE.

MANFREDO TAFURI

MANFREDO TAFURI

DRAWS A PARALLEL BETWEEN THE POLITICAL SITUATION IN THE 1920S AND CONTEMPORARY THOUGHT.

MANFREDO TAFURI

CRITICIZES THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURAL CRITICISM ITSELF FOR BEING “OPERATIVE.”

MANFREDO TAFURI

“OPERATIVE CRITICISM” MISREADS THE PAST THROUGH THE IDEOLOGICAL BIASES OF THE PRESENT.

MANFREDO TAFURI

“IDEOLOGY” - IN MARXIST TERMS - SIGNIFIES THE FALSE “CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS” OF THE BOURGEOISIE THAT PREVENTS THE PROLETARIAT FROM ATTAINING A TRUE CONSCIOUSNESSOF HIS/HER REVOLUTIONARY POTENTIAL.

MANFREDO TAFURI

“IDEOLOGY” - IN MARXIST TERMS - SIGNIFIES THE FALSE “CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS” OF THE BOURGEOISIE THAT PREVENTS THE PROLETARIAT FROM ATTAINING A TRUE CONSCIOUSNESSOF HIS/HER REVOLUTIONARY POTENTIAL.

MANFREDO TAFURI

BECAUSE ARCHITECTURE IS CRITICALLY IMPOTENT IN THE FACE OF ADVANCED CAPITALISM, TAFURI ULTIMATELY WANTS TO AFFIRM HISTORY’S AUTONOMY AND THEORETICAL SEPARATION FROM CON-TEMPORARY PRACTICE.

MANFREDO TAFURI

ALDO ROSSI MANFREDO TAFURI

+

AUTONOMOUS TYPETIMELESS PERMANENCES

AUTONOMOUS HISTORYIDEOLOGICAL CRITIQUE

=

ARCHITECTURE AS A THEORETICAL PROJECT; AS FORMALLY AND THEORETICALLY RESISTANCE TO CAPITALISM

AN OBSESSION WITH THE FAILURES OF MODERNISM

A NEW AVANT-GARDE THAT SHARED THE HISTORIC ONE’S FORMAL CHARACTERISTICS BUT NOT ITS POLITICAL AGENDAS

THE WHITES VS. THE GRAYS

PETER EISENMAN MICHAEL GRAVES

PETER EISENMAN MICHAEL GRAVES

FOUNDED THE CONFERENCE OF ARCHITECTS FOR THE STUDY OF THE ENVIRONMENT [CASE] IN 1964.

PETER EISENMAN

FOUNDED THE INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN STUDIES [IAUS] IN 1967.

NEW YORK FIVE (THE “WHITES”)

1 2

53 4

1.PETER EISENMAN2.MICHAEL GRAVES3.CHARLES GWATHMEY4.JOHN HEDDIERICHARD MEIER

PETER EISENMAN

PETER EISENMAN

CASA DEL FACSIO, GUISEPPE TERRAGNI (1936)

COLIN ROWE

COLIN ROWE

COLIN ROWE

...there is now introduced a conception of transparency quite distinct fromany physical quality of substance and almost equally remote from the ideaof the transparent as the perfectly clear. In fact, by this de�nition, the transparent ceases to be that which is perfectly clear and becomes, instead, that which is clearly ambiguous.

COLIN ROWE

�erefore, at the beginning of any inquiry into transparency, a basic distinction must be established. Transparency may be an inherent quality of substance - as in a wire mesh or glass curtain wall - or it may be an inherent quality of organization...and one might, for this reason distinguish between a real and a phenomenal or seeming transparency.

SIMULTANEOUS WINDOWS ROBERT DELAUNAY (1911)

STILL LIFEJUAN GRIS (1912)

HOUSE II (1969)

HOUSE III (1971)

HOUSE VI (1975)

ARCHITECTURE AS PURE SYNTAX (NOT SEMANTICS)

ARCHITECTURE AS CONCEPTUAL ART (NOT POP ART)


ARCHITECTURE AS DEEP STRUCTURE (NOT SURFACE AESTHETIC)



ARCHITECTURE AS “POST-FUNCTIONALIST”



ARCHITECTURE AS DEEP STRUCTURE (NOT SURFACE AESTHETIC)

PETER EISENMAN

PETER EISENMAN

�e critical establishment within architecture has told us that we have entered the era of “post-modernism.” �e tone with which this news is delivered is invariably one of relief, similar to that which accompanies the advice that one is no longer an adolescent. Two indices of this supposed change are the quite di�erent manifestations of the “Architettura Razionale” exhibition at the Milan Triennale of 1973, and the “Ecole des Beaux Arts” exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1975.

?

PETER EISENMAN

What is interesting is not the mutually exclusive character of these two diagnoses and hence their solutions, but rather the fact that both of theseviews enclose architecture within the same de�nition: one by which the terms continue to be function (or program) and form (and type). In so doing, an attitude toward architecture is maintained that di�eres in no signi�cant way from the 500-year-old tradition of humanism.

?

PETER EISENMAN

It is true that sometime in the nineteenth century there was indeed a critical shi� within western consciousness: one which can be characterizedas a shi� from humanism to modernism. But, for the most part, architecture,in its dogged adherence to the principles of function, did not participate in or understand the fundamental aspects of that change. It is the potential di�erence in the nature of modernist and humanist theory that seems to have gone unnoticed by those people who today speak of eclecticism, post-modernism, neo-modernism, or neo-functionalism.

PETER EISENMAN

It is true that sometime in the nineteenth century there was indeed a critical shi� within western consciousness: one which can be characterizedas a shi� from humanism to modernism. But, for the most part, architecture,in its dogged adherence to the principles of function, did not participate in or understand the fundamental aspects of that change. It is the potential di�erence in the nature of modernist and humanist theory that seems to have gone unnoticed by those people who today speak of eclecticism, post-modernism, neo-modernism, or neo-functionalism.

PETER EISENMAN

In brief, the modernist sensibility has to do with a changed mental attitudetoward the artifacts of the physical world. �is change has not only beenmanifested aesthetically, but also socially, philosophically, and technologically - in sum, it has been manifested in a new cultural attitude. �is shi� away from the dominant attitudes of humanism, that were pervasive in Western societies for some four hundred years, took place at various times in the nineteenth century in such disparate disciplines as mathematics, music, painting, literature, �lm, and photography.

PETER EISENMAN

�is new theoretical base changes the humanist balance of form/function to a dialectical relationship within the evolution of form itself.


1 2

53 4


SMITH HOUSE (1967)

DOUGLAS HOUSE (1973)


1 2

53 4


BENACERRAF HOUSE (1969)

?


1 2

53 4

1.PETER EISENMAN2.MICHAEL GRAVES3.CHARLES GWATHMEY4.JOHN HEDDIERICHARD MEIER?

GWATHMEY HOUSE (1965)


1 2

53 4


WALL HOUSE (1973)

COLIN ROWE

For we are here in the presence of what, in terms of the orthodox theory ofmodern architecture, is heresy. We are in the presence of anachronism,nostalgia, and probably, frivolity. If modern architecture looked like this c.1930 then it should not look like this today; and, if the real politicalissue of the present is not the provision of the rich with cake but of the starving with bread, then not only formally but also programmatically these building are irrelevant.

THE GRAYS

YALE PENN

VSB SCULLY KAHN

STERN JR MOORE RG

POP CULTUREMIDDLE CLASSCAPITALISMCOMMERCIALIZATIONIMAGERYAMBIGUITYEVERYDAYNESSDIFFERENCEPLASTICULTERIORSEMIOTICS

ROBERT A.M. STERN

?ROBERT A.M. STERN

“Post-Modernism” and “Post-Functionalism” can both be seen as attempts to get out of the trap of orthodox Modernism now devoid of philosophic meaning and formal energy, and both are similar in their emphasis on the development of a strong formal basis for design. Beyond this, however, they are widely divergent, in that “Post-Functionalism” seeks to develop formal compositional themes as independent entities freed from cultural connotations, whereas “Post-Modernism” embodies a search for strategies that will make architecture more responsive to and visually cognizant of its own history,the physical context in which a given work of architecture is set...

?ROBERT A.M. STERN

Implicit in this emergent Post-Modernist position is a recognition that themore than ��y-year history of the Modernist movement has been accompanied by no notable increase in a�ection on the part of the public for the designvocabulary that has been evolved.

ROBERT A.M. STERN

A large part of the work of the “Grays” tends to establish connections with the formal, spatial, and decorative invention of the nineteenth century.For the “Grays,” at least, Venturi and Moore have laid the foundation for the philosophical structure of Post-Modernism.

ROBERT A.M. STERN

�e Beaux-Arts exhibition reminded us of the poverty of orthodox Modernarchitecture: trapped in the narcissism of its obsession with the process of its own making, sealed o� from everyday experience and from high culture alike by its abstraction and the narrowing of its frame of reference within the Modern period...drained of energy as a result of a confusion betweenthe values assigned to minimalism by a Mies van der Rohe...

ROBERT A.M. STERN

�e Work of the “Grays” presents certain strategies and attitudes thatdistinguish it from the “Whites.” �ese strategies include:

�e use of ornament.

�e manipulation of forms to introduce an explicit historical reference.

�e conscious and eclectic utilizationof the formal strategies of orthodoxmodernism, together with the strategies the pre-Modern period.

�e preference for incomplete orcompromised geometries, voluntarydistortion, and the recognitionof growth of buildings over time.

�e use of rich colors and variousmaterials that e�ect a material-ization of architecture’s imageryand perceptible qualities.

�e con�guration of spaces in terms of light and view as well as use.

�e con�guration of spaces in terms of light and view as well as use.

�e adjustment of speci�c images charged with carrying the ideas of the building.

“Gray” buildings have facades which tell stories.

Documents

THE AUTONOMY PROJECT - · PDF filemanfredo tafuri. because architecture is critically impotent in the face of advanced capitalism, tafuri ultimately wants to affirm history’s autonomy