The Ghost of Architecture: The Project and Its Codification

Author(s): Antoine Picon, Emmanuel J. Petit and Lucia Allais

Source: Perspecta, Vol. 35, Building Codes (2004), pp. 8-19
Published by: The MIT Press on behalf of Perspecta.
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Antoine Picon The Ghost of Architecture
Translated by Emmanuel J. Petit and Lucia Allais

A haunted discipline
There is no art without rules to codify its practice. This
truism has been consistently reaffirmed from antiquity to
the present, and it rings particularly true for architecture.
Whether to withstand the constraints of physicality, or to
respond to the needs of patrons, buildings must obey an
entire set of prescriptions that are as social as they are
technological. From the Vitruvian orders to the various
norms that frame contemporary practice, architecture
has never been without rules.
In artistic terms, these rules cannot be dissociated
from their transgression--the set of deviations that allow
designers to give their work a mark of distinction. Even
within the tradition of Vitruvian orders and proportions,
room was always found for artistic license, whose
infidelities are more or less pronounced depending on the
architect.' Today's designers take similar liberties with
dominant aesthetic codes, willfully transgressing even
technological directives for the sake of a desired architec-
tural quality.
Rules and licenses have varied considerably over time;
this essay proposes to examine two moments of transi-
I On this subject, see, for example,
Alina Payne, The Architectural
tion between an old and a new system of codification.
Treatise in the Italian Renaissance.: The first moment lies at the threshold between the
Architectural Invention, Ornament, and
Literary Culture (Cambridge: Cam-
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when the Vitruvian
bridge University Press, 1999). principles that architects had endorsed since the
2 See Antoine Picon, French Archi-
tects and Engineers in the Age of
Renaissance were brought into question. We live in the
Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cam- second moment, when a digital revolution confronts
bridge University Press, 1992).
3 Kenneth Frampton, Studies in architecture as much as other artistic and technological
Tectonic Culture: The Poetics ofCon- practices, from photography to film. While it would be
struction in Nineteenth and Twentieth
Century Architecture (Cambridge,
difficult to assess the full implications of a phenomenon
Mass.: MIT Press, 1995). as it is unfolding, we may attempt to discern some of its
4 Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of
Scientific Revolutions (Chicago:
most significant characteristics.
University of Chicago Press, 1962). Unprecedented liberties arise during periods of

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The Project and Its Codification

transition, much to the displeasure of the guardians of sance came to a close, the Vitruvian tradition itself
instated tradition. In early-I770s France, a certain granted only distracted attention to the question of
Jacques-Frangois Blondel served as an ardent defender orders and proportions. This question was not a central
of the classical tradition. Blondel could not find words issue until the end of the seventeenth century, when it
strong enough to fustigate the work of Claude Nicolas resurfaced in the debate between Claude Perrault and
Ledoux, whose departures from this tradition strayed Blondel, which marked the beginning of the crisis that
well beyond the limits of what had been viewed as would ultimately empty the teachings of Vitruvius of
their content. Similarly, Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand's
permissible.2 Today, it is not difficult to discern an echo
of Blondel's position in Kenneth Frampton's critiques ofefforts to articulate rules for architectural composition
digital architecture, particularly in his reproach that constitute only a transitional phase in the early nine-
dematerialization is antithetical to the "poetics of teenth century, after which French architecture found
construction" he has deemed fundamental to Modern itself more preoccupied with stylistic questions and
Architecture.3 problems of technological standardization than with the
Yet the freedom afforded by a crisis of architectural continuation of Durand's efforts. In fact, putting aside
codes cannot last forever. New codes emerge to replace these periods of rupture, efforts at architectural codifica-
those lost, and new licenses to soften these codes also tion often seem peripheral to what constitutes the core
begin to appear. Such new codes are never coincidental.of the discipline.
Directly or indirectly, they shape the identification of Here it is difficult not to think of the vision of history
the elements that constitute the discipline of architecture
that Thomas Kuhn developed in the early sixties, wherein
at a given moment and in a given context. As we shall the history of science is defined by paradigm shifts and
see, the questioning of the Vitruvian orders and propor- their associated revolutions.4 These shifts, condensed in
tions, and the corresponding emergence of composition time and intensely polemical, were, according to Kuhn,
and type as the guiding principles for French architec- to be followed by longer and calmer periods during which
tural practice, correspond to a centering of the disciplineresearch would shun fundamental questions in favor of
around the question of project at the turn of the nine- segmental explorations of one or another principle.
teenth century. The current diffusion of digital culture in The analogy is tempting. Yet it would be reductive to
architecture will undoubtedly produce a similar shift, use a theory like Kuhn's to make sense of the history of
and it is in the context of this shift that our contempo- the architectural discipline and its succession of codes-
rary understanding of the architectural project must be be it only because architectural and scientific communi-
interrogated. ties operate so differently. However, the comparison does
Although the codification of architecture is directly reveal the prominent role of tradition in both domains.
related to its disciplinary definition, rules and codes do Much like science, architecture seems to function as
not systematically address what appears to be essential toa succession of traditions that become discontinuous
the discipline. Once the foundational era of the Renais- during periods of crisis. From this perspective it becomes

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 Picon-The Ghost of Architecture IO0

futile to search for a timeless

of architecture founded on v
unchanged. The history of ar
that of its values, its codes, an
over time, transformations at
remains of the architectural
revolution has ended it. Clear
today has little to do with w
would have judged relevant to
practice.
One should not be completely seduced by the
intellectual appeal of this discontinuist model. Some
projects from the past continue to speak to us; some
could even serve as a guide for contemporary practice.
Mansart and Francesco Borromini may be remote
figures by now, but their architectures--of French
Classicism and Roman Baroque-still have much to
teach us. Past and present have an uncanny way of short-
circuiting one another. The fragments out of which
architectural history is made continue to adhere to one
another, and though some of the seams are distended,
every so often architects are tempted to don the
Harlequin's costume this patchwork comprises.
Certainly we could attribute the persistence of past
traditions to the existence of a disembodied spirit of
architecture that hovers over an ocean of forgetfulness,
fishing out certain epochs and certain works-that of
Karl Friedrich Schinkel, for example, for the sake of his
ties to Ludwig Mies van der Rohes--and casting back
others. Even without subscribing to such imagery (an
idealist one, to say the least) the astonishing capacity of
formal systems to survive their own deaths is nonetheless
5 Cf. Terence Riley and Barry 8 On the debate of Perrault and noteworthy. Although they are attached to distinct
Bergdoll (eds.), Mies in Berlin (New Blondel one may consult, for example,
historical traditions, the codes and rules of architectures
York: Museum of Modern Art, 2001). Wolfgang Herrmann, The Theory of
6 Ren6 Ouvrard, Architecture harmon- Claude Perrault (London: A. past haunt the present like the shadows that populate
ique, ou application de la doctrine des Zwemmer, 1973); Alberto Perez-
proportions de la musique a' l'architec- Gomez, Architecture and the Crisis of
the Elysian Fields of Greek myth, capable on occasion of
ture (Paris: R. J. B. De La Caille, Modern Science (Cambridge, Mass.: addressing the living and conveying to them some part
I679). MIT Press, 1983); Antoine Picon,
7 The authors of the Logique drew Claude Perrault, 1613-1688, ou La of their experience. Though we have long since aban-
particular contrast between natural Curiosite d'un classique (Paris: Picard, doned the Vitruvian creed, we continue to respond to
signs and signs instituted by people. 1989); Alberto Perez-Gomez, "Intro-
duction to Claude Perrault," in Claude questions of orders and proportions, to the eurythmy of
Perrault, Ordonnancefor the Five certain compositions, and even to the artistic licenses
Kinds of Columns after the Method of
the Ancients, trans. Indra Kagis
that architects like Giulio Romano granted themselves.
McEwen (Santa Monica: Getty Center Similarly, having long since repudiated the nineteenth
for the History of Art and the Human-
century's obsessions with style, we continue to refer
ities, 1993), 1-44.
9 Denis Diderot, Thoughts on the to the notion of architectural style when the need arises.
Interpretation ofNature, and other
Philosophical Works (Manchester: Codes and rules are not simply confined to the successive
Clinamen Press, 1999), 38. architectural traditions that they constitute. Beyond their
Io Cf. Anne Debarre-Blanchard and
Monique Eleb-Vidal, Architectures de
deaths they continue to exert their power, lending our
la vieprivie.: Maisons et mentalitis rereadings of the past a contemporary flavor. It is only
XVIIe-XIXe siecles (Brussels:
Archives d'Architecture Moderne,
because architecture is haunted by shadows and ghosts,
1989). who drift from room to room murmuring old stories into

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 II

proportions-which was more radical even than

the ears of their occupants, that its successive traditions
project the appearance of disciplinary unity. Vignola's. But in his debates with Blondel the pro
If one accepts this hypothesis, the question splits:
design became a secondary issue, eclipsed as it wa
What will remain of architecture as we know it after the of taste and convention. Indeed, what
questions
sought
digital revolution? Which aspects of this revolution in his caustic Ordonnancefor the Five Kin
will
Columns
prove to have a decisive effect? In this respect, the after the Method of the Ancients, publis
issue of
materiality presents less pressing questions than1683,
does was
the the normalization of taste, or rather it
institution, in the sense of the term institution b
privileged status that the project has come to hold.
from the authors of the Logique de Port-Royal.7
in turn, would rely on Ouvrard to reject this con
The crisis of the Vitruvian tradition and the attempts
to codify the project of a socialized architectural beauty, in his effort
The notion of project is not an invention of thereinvest
late orders and proportions with a naturalist
cosmic authority. It has been noted that this con
eighteenth century. It emerged during the Renaissance
tion constitutes one of the earliest signs of a wea
alongside the modern distinction between the builder
in with
occupied by a trade and the architect preoccupied the Vitruvian theoretical framework.8 Still, th
an idea. Both the Italian disegno and the Frenchand its possible codification were addressed only
dessein
peripherally. It was not until the second half of t
refer to the existence of a creative conception that
precedes execution-a conception that simultaneously
eighteenth century that it became a central issue
carries humanist connotations and encompasses architectural debate.
technological knowledge. The motives surrounding this emergence of th
project
This could be the end of the story, except that are too complex to dwell upon here. On
it is not
clear that the architecture of the fifteenth and level,
sixteenth
they have to do with the growing importan
imperative of utility, as well as a desire for the pr
centuries defined itself primarily around the projective
dictability and control that characterize much of
process of design. In their Renaissance reinterpretation,
Enlightenment culture. "The idea of'usefulness
the Vitruvian orders addressed architectural objects
boundaries
in their ability to manifest the regularity of the cosmos on everything. The criterion of usefu
about
rather than in the various steps of their creation. to place limits on geometry, & in a few cen
In other
from
words, the built object was given critical weight, now, it will do the same for experimental
whereas
the process of its design remained hidden. This wrote Diderot in his Thoughts on the Interpretat
emphasis
Nature of 1754. Understood in the rather genera
on the building over the design manipulations is
that
particularly apparent in the case of France, where the eighteenth-century elites gave it, utility
the
and parcel of a desire for predictability. It is imp
privileged status that numerous treatises accorded
remember
Vignola's system of proportions testified to a desire for that it was within this context that m
economic
simplification in the design process. Indeed, it was science was born.
to this
From an architectural point of view, a whole series of
ambition for simplicity that Perrault would, in turn,
bring his own supplementary touches. external phenomena foreshadowed the prioritization of
The theoretical counterpart to the success of utility and its effects. The first stems from a growing
Vignola's system came in the form of a repeated interest in questions relating to program and distribu-
affirma-
tion of the analogy between architectural and musical
tion. In fact Jacques-Francois Blondel1o himself had cast
distribution
proportions. Having been frequently rehearsed since its as one of the principal branches of architec-
ture. Programming spaces, questioning their inter-
Pythagorean origins, this theme was given a new
relationships, and organizing them into functionally
paroxystic expression in the middle of the seventeenth
satisfactory
century in Ren6 Ouvrard's Architecture harmonique of sequences provided a way to address both
the administrative needs of institutions and the
1679.6 Ouvrard's proportions were not instruments for
projecting; rather, they were measures by whichaspirations
to of a ruling class who was discovering the
sanction those exemplary buildings whose dimensions
virtues of domestic privacy. Public buildings began to be
specialized
conform to rules of harmony. Such rules of measure hadand organized according to specific needs,
while the
nothing to do with the effective procedures involved in residences of enlightened nobility came to be
conceiving buildings. comprised of rooms with clearly defined uses, whose
Around the same time Perrault argued for aninterrelation
almost was materialized by the connective space of
the corridor.
combinatory simplicity in defense of his own system of

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 Picon-The Ghost of Architecture 12

Along with this h

and distribution, o
control the cost an
effectively. The de
Soufflot's Abbey
are particularly re
around the establis
of buildings." Thou
means an exception
notorious polemic
multiplied through
century. 12 This ev
of the building pr
for example, techn
estimating the exp
the level of precisi
whose 1691 Archit
authoritative manu
the century, measu
tion would be repl
geometry, resultin
estimation.

Measured against these new stakes, the inadequaci

of the theoretical and regulatory framework inherited
from Vitruvius soon became evident. New foundations
were needed if architecture was to be more than merely
useful and provident. Architecture would also have to
"speak" to the mind and senses."3 To preserve its status as
an artistic practice aligned with the fundamental values
of society, its utility could not be only physical; it also
II See Michael Petzet, Soufflots 14 E.-L. Boullee, Architecture. Essai had to be moral. To these challenges one must also add
Sainte-Genevieve und derfranz6sische sur I'art; present translation is from the
English edition, Boullie's Treatise
the growing rivalry between architecture and engineer-
Kirchenbau des I8.Jahrhunderts
(Berlin: W de Gruyter, 1961); and Le on Architecture, ed. Helen Rosenau ing, and the corresponding threat that architecture might
Pantheon, symbole des revolutions (London: A. Tiranti, 1953), 46.
(Paris: Caisse Nationale des Monu- 15 Read in this context Werner
be subsumed as merely a branch of the conquering new
ments Historiques et des Sites and Szambien, "Notes sur le recueil art of the engineer.
Picard, 1989). d'architecture privee de Boull~e
12 See, in the case of Nantes, G.
As a cultural production, architecture followed the
(1792-I1796)," in Gazette des Beaux-
Bienvenu, "L'Affaire de la plate-bande Arts (March 198I), I I-24. general movement of a century that spanned from Locke
du grand escalier du palais de la 16 Cf. Jean-Marie Perouse de
Montclos, Etienne-Louis Boullee,
and Condillac to Kant and German Idealism, which is
Chambre des Comptes de Bretagne:
Expertise et pratique de chantier a to say, from a diversification of experiences to their
Nantes au XVIIIe si~cle" (D.E.A. a1728-1799." De rivolutionnaire
l'architecture I'architecture classique
(Paris:
dissertation, Universit6 de Paris I - Arts et Metiers Graphiques, 1969). progressive re-concentration into a transcendental subject
Sorbonne, 1996). 17 See Monique Mosser and Daniel
who, alone, gives them meaning. So it is that French
13 Cf. Anthony Vidler, The Writing of Rabreau, "L'Academie Royale et
the Walls.- Architectural Theory in the l'enseignement de l'architecture au architectural thought between the years 1770 and 1790
Late Enlightenment (Princeton: XVIIIame siecle," in Archives d'Architec- would come to lend an increasingly determinant impor-
Princeton Architectural Press, I987). ture Moderne, 25 (I983): 47-67; and
Jean-Marie Perouse de Montclos, Les
tance to what happens in the mind of the architect, and
Prix de Rome.- Concours de IAcadimie to the primarily intellectual nature of the operations
Royale d'Architecture au XVIIIe sidcle
(Paris: Berger-Levrault and Ecole
that he practices.
Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts, Before Durand's Pricis, Boullde's Essai sur l'art was
1984).
I8 Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture and perhaps the clearest expression of this shift. It is in this
Utopia.- Design and Capitalist Develop- perspective that his famous introductory statement
ment, trans. Barbara Luigia La Penta
should be read:
(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1976
[Bari, 19731). What is architecture? Shall I join Vitruvius in

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 13

Aw Lomif. A Alah defining it as the ar

A .. , ,?,.A-raw
there is a flagrant"
e
to execute, it is fir
earliest ancestors b
.... .... . ..

had a picture of the

vu ..... ...... ... . product of the min
.............. .........
? ... i
constitutes architecture.14
While writing these introductory lines, Boullee also
reflected on the principles of what would become
composition in the work of his former student Durand."
... ... ......

From his study of simple bodies and their analogy to

sensations, to his reflection on composition, Durand's
",. .......<i........
writings and drawings sketch out a definitive theory of
the project, though this theory stops short of becoming
normative.
...... ,,- ........... '"........... .
- ' ,. In the 1780s, this budding theory found a most fertile
ground in the school of the Acad6mie Royale d'Archi-
tecture, where Boull6e could be counted among the most
influential professors.'6 Under his tutelage, which
typically involved programs as ambitious as those envi-
Fig. I Plans and section of the various
sioned in L'Essai sur l'art, the student projects developed
versions proposed by Soufflot for the dome
of Sainte-Genevieve. The engraving is
at the academy are also clearly defined by their explo-
supposed to provide graphic evidence ration of compositional techniques.17
against the stability of the dome finally One could demonstrate that the shift in the definition
proposed by Soufflot. Pierre Patte, of the architectural discipline-from the tension between
MWmoire sur la construction de la coupole
the rules of order and proportion and the canon of
projetee pour courroner la nouvelle &glise de
notable buildings, toward a theory and a practice equally
Sainte-Genevieve a Paris, 1770
centered on the project-extends well beyond the borders
of the French cultural territory. The work of Piranesi
bears the mark of this same kind of displacement, as do
English and American references to Palladio, who had
been one of the few authors of sixteenth-century treatises
actually to formulate explicit hypotheses on the design
process, by serializing his villa projects. Manfredo Tafuri
had already traced the line from Piranesi through
Jeffersonian Paladianism in Architecture and Utopia.
Echoing Tafuri's argument, we must underscore the
appearance of a fundamental contradiction between an
architectural discipline fully contained, so to speak, in
the head of the architect, and one with pretensions of
purpose and utility for a growing number of citizens.'s
Fig. z Etienne-Louis Boull6e, design for
a cenotaph in the Though
Egyptian the notion of"genius"--that
manner, 1784faculty to be
profoundly oneself all the while following a universal
inspiration--would serve as the ideological justification
for this strange pretension, the balance between the
project of the Architect and the project as a political and
social "Utopia," again to borrow Tafuri's terms, never-
theless remained fragile at best.
Could it be to overcome this fragility that Jean-
Nicolas-Louis Durand sought to strip Boull~e's legacy of
anything that might, in any way, recall the inspired

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 Picon-The Ghost of Architecture 14

genius of the architec

Architecture delivered
1802-I1805, everything
architectural project in
tion between a buildin
composition.19 The ele
tectural orders, are st
than had been propos
tion is subject to a sim
scheme, Durand begins
functions of the build
19 On Durand, 2osee
Leonce Reynaud,
Werner Trairt d'architec- axes, in turn, allows f
Szambien,
ture: Contenant
Jean-Nicolas-Louis des notions gkndrales
Durand, 1760-
sur les principes de lala
construction et
one ano in relation to
1834.: De I'imitation .6 norme (Paris:
Picard, I984); S. Villari,
sur l'histoire de IFart (Paris:J N L. of
Carilian- architectural
eleme
Durand (1I760 - Goeury
1834): and Victor Art
Dalmont, 1850-8).
and Science
ofArchitecture,About the teachings Eli
trans. of Reynaud and
Gottlieb
stage toward its final
his treaty, readI99o
(New York: Rizzoli, Fernand de Dartein,
[Rome, various stages of the d
M. Lionce Revnaud:
1987]); and Antoine Sa vie et ses "From
Picon,
'Poetry of Art' to Method: The Theory
architecture to achieve
oeuvres par 'un de ses l~lves (Paris:
of Jean-Nicolas-Louis Dunod, 1885); and Durand,"
Vincent Guigueno of the engineers, but t
introduction to Jean-Nicolas-Louis and Antoine Picon, "Entre rational-
Durand, Precis of the Lectures on isme et eclectisme: L'Enseignement Boull6e had also there
Architecture, trans. David Britt (Los d'architecture de Leonce Reynaud," in conception of architec
Angeles: Getty Research Institute, Bulletin de la Socidtd des Amis de la
2000), I-68.
Precis, Durand even w
Bibliotheque de 1'Ecole Polytechnique,
I6 (December 1996), I2-19. pleasure ought not to

'Aux"

?.:., ~.. - ?. - .?c-? ...-~iii .. .~? ? ~

f.ii

"' : " ...'- i1i

:?., .o

,-, .... .: ... :

? , . I .-- .. ..-.. ,

!I:,i!;
A.," -, 4,- IL-

i?:s-r
,..'.'. ,'. ..- . .. '" : 7 ??' -- -~
_ - i a Z

IRS II-II
.-- ----------

.....

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 15

This effort to make architecture subject solely to the and ventilation, but with very little of value concerning
imperatives of social and political utility reveals a the rules and norms of the project itself.
utopianism in Durand's work, an echo of the revolution- It is troubling to realize that this practice would
ary dream that most commentaries on Durand have continue to occupy a central position in the definition of
overlooked. the architectural discipline, even through the advent of
Despite the kinship that unites it with the composi- the Modem Movement, without any effort to subject the
tional techniques developed throughout the nineteenth codes of this practice to the kind of ambitious investiga-
century at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Durand's attempt tive scrutiny deployed by Durand. Like a panoptic device
was in many respects an isolated endeavor. It is as if, oncewhose ever-empty center nevertheless controls its
the architectural discipline had been re-centered around periphery, the Modem Movement passionately pursued
the project, this project's actual codification lost all standards of all sorts without ever really codifying
importance. The nineteenth century would be preoccu- the very kernel of its own preoccupations. By contrast,
pied less with extending the trajectory laid out by Durandthe collapse of the Vitruvian tradition did not corre-
than with historical styles, their definition, and the spond solely to a transformation of the founding values
norms that would allow new techniques to be adapted toof architecture. It was also evidenced in the discipline's
the architectural climate. The Traite d'architecture by adoption of an internal economy that was radically
Leonce Reynaud, who succeeded Durand as the chair of different than before. While there were multiple attempts
architecture at the Ecole Polytechnique, is revealing in by fifteenth- and sixteenth-century architects to codify
this respect.20 Its pages are filled with illuminating the orders and proportions, their distant successors
elaborations on Gothic architecture and the Lombard managed only to remain unsettlingly silent about the
style, with dimensioning systems updated with the latest project and its methods. To be sure, questions concerning
material resistance studies, with reflections on heating the orders lost much of their importance in the

- . rF T T ..
i

I- a.A -- - -

' ..........
~ ~ ~..
~ . 4. ! !I
" ... .-- ... .7'
. ..... -'- ...
,
---...,= kL----..
i!~i .:.... -.:.....-..----
.... - r-i- "
?: .?- -:
, ? k.....

T LA FF r1 1- ir

Fig. 3 (left) Diagram from Jean-Nicolas- t!- , " - ? t?i

Louis Durand, Precis des legons d'architec-
ture donnees a l'Ecole Polytechnique, 2nd
edn., 1825. "Marche a suivre dans la
composition d'un projet quelconque"
[Procedure to be adopted in the composi-
tion of any project]
Fig. 4 (right) De Juge, design for an
apartment building for an architectural
competition held at the Ecole Polytech-
nique, 1831. A student's project following
Durand's method

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Picon-The Ghost of Architecture 16

Manneris
remained
beginning
prevailed
of archite
distance f
Durand's
measure, e
to abandon
rules of a

of manife
reviews, t
centuries
tently fai

Post- or S
Lr, ?
In thinkin
may well
actually li
. a mal form
A good m
-. . . .

Is digital c
industrial
maturity?
or has it s
lhp

.i.
tion's inte
since the e

S.. . 10
il- alb\.. :
this
informati
latter

technolog
governme
respective
For now,
Fig. 5 World maps show
super-reg
Internet routers (above)
population
to be our
(below)
give way
revolution
logical sh
Order of
It is strik
of the glo
to accentu
21zI 24
Marc See,
Aug6, for example,
Non-Lieux: IG
tion
d Animate
une disparities
Form
anthropologie (New
de laY
Architectural
modernite (Paris: Le Press,
Seuil, 1
19
In terms
also, by 25 Cf.
the Antoine
same author,Picon
Pou
anthropologie token,
I'inginieur:
des mondes sup
Constructe
con
rains inventeur
(Paris: (Paris:
Aubier, Edit
1994).
project in
22 See, Georges
for Pompidou
example, Armand an
Mattelart, L'Invention de la c
I997). questioned
cation (Paris: La D6couverte
23 Michel computer
Foucault, Les Mot
choses: Une of the des
archtologie pros
humaines (Paris:
blurGallimard,
that
Michel Foucault, L'Archdolo
savoir (Paris: architectu
Gallimard, 196

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 17

structuring of the processes of design, if not to their innovative aspect of Greg Lynn's writings lies not so
codification. much in the philosophic references, from Leibniz to
The first of these factors lies in the fundamentally Deleuze, that he mobilizes in support of his argument,
procedural character of the computer. The computer but rather in the light that he sheds on what the manipu-
imposes rules onto its user. The structure of a particular lation of fluid geometries means, concretely.24
design software constitutes an additional constraint. In The question of admissible licenses is also at stake in
contrast with the traditional tools of the architect, the context of this multiplication of formal propositions
graphic programs implicitly suggest to the user certain that are so disarming to the critic. What to say about the
types of geometric solutions. In order to avoid being "blobs," the spaghettis and the other mille-feuilles that
locked up in a set of codes and rules foreign to the digital architecture so tirelessly produces? It may well be
practice of architecture, it becomes essential to be able to that in such a context, the criteria for judgment are
prescribe a certain number of constraints to the machine displaced, from an evaluation of theform toward an
and to the software. The formulation of such instructions assessment of the motivations that underlie the process of
requires a greater clarity about the strategies and the its birth. Hasn't engineering long offered an example of
stakes of the project than before. a discipline where forms are meaningful only in reference
On a perhaps more fundamental level, the computer to the decisions of which they bear the mark?25 Such a
theoretically allows for the limitless generation of fluid transformation again implies an increased transparency
geometries. Since parameters can be continually in the process of design.
adjusted, the decision to stop the process at such and To these somewhat internal factors are added the
such a stage of geometric transformation becomes problems posed by architecture's interaction with other
absolutely essential. When manipulation becomes so disciplines and other practices. One would expect
easy that it can cycle indefinitely, even without the that the digitization of projects should allow for
direction of the designer since machines can "run" all by improved interaction between the architect and the
themselves, the decisions actually made by this designer structural designer, between the architect and the
emerge thoroughly reinforced. Here again, this reinforce- mechanical engineer, and even between the architect and
ment plays in favor of a codification of the procedures of the materials fabricator, since it has become possible to
design more advanced than ever before. It is striking that specify with increasing accuracy the properties of the
most of those who try to theorize digital architecture materials that will be used. It is difficult to see how these
only ever talk about those procedures and the way they multiple interfaces could facilitate smooth interaction
are affected by the use of the computer. The most if the project were to remain a "black box," accessible to

Fig. 6 Kolatan/MacDonald Studio,

Resi/Rise (Vertical Mode), 1999. "The
Resi/Rise is not so much a building as a
matrix of'lots' taking the shape of so many
independent pods. Taking up the whole
volume offered by New York's 'zoning
laws,' the form of the tower incorporates the
site's local restrictions. The organization of
the pods among themselves carries on the
urban analogy. Individual choice and
'collective' performance merge in a complex
and flexible system linking the parts and
the whole together."

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 Picon-The Ghost of Architecture 18

non-architects only after the a

principal parameters.
Without its protective opacit
the absolute sovereignty that w
revolution-the change of the e
post-modernity-could well be
process of clarification whose
ning to reveal themselves.
These premises stem from th
by certain aspects of architect
secondary: such as the working
tions of texture and light gene
Movement had emphasized th
its projects, most contemporar
operate on a kind of two-dime
given to notions and themes li
point in the same direction. Ar
architecture as threshold or as screen: these attitudes
appear in project after project, to deploy the effects of
walls, according to a logic that is more reminiscent of
writing than of the sculptural plasticity of volumes that
modernism has accustomed us to. In this context, it is
not difficult to understand the renewed interest in the
tectonic theory of Gottfried Semper, which allowed a
simultaneous understanding of architecture and of
ornamental writing, of the project and the wall. The
success of Frampton's Studies in Tectonic Culture, in
which Semper holds a significant place, could well
contribute to this evolution, even as the book endeavors
to denounce its dangers. It would not be the first time
that a treatise of theory and history worked against the
intentions of its author.
26 See, among others, Toshiko Mori
(ed.), Immaterial/l Ultramaterial:.
Far from acting as abstractions, writings and walls
Architecture, Design, and Materials
seek to engage humanity in its corporeal dimension.
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Design
School in association with George A new sense of materiality seems to have been called
Braziller, 2002).
27 Cf. Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs and upon to articulate new possibilities for interfacing
Richard Koek (eds.), Farmax.: Excur- between man and machine, and new elaborations of
sions on Density (Rotterdam: o0o
Publishers, 1994); and Ben van Berkel
materials through computer-assisted fabrication.26 This
and Caroline Bos, Move (Amsterdam: new materiality often goes hand in hand with an
UN Studio and Goose Press, 1999).
28 Cf. D. Rouillard, "Radical Archi- eagerness to conform to the laws of the economy, rather
tettura," in Tschumi." Une architecture
than rejecting them as the modernist avant-gardes had
en projet (Paris: Editions du Centre
Georges Pompidou and Le Fresnoy, done. Is this not the claim of the principals of uN Studio
1993), 89-II2. and the members of MVRDV alike?27 Both the former's
29 See Ron Witte (ed.), Toyo Ito.-
Sendai Mediatheque (Munich: Prestel,
acceptance of the fashion system, and the latter's
2002). Koolhaasian apology of density, point in the same

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 19

.-?

6 ~
~: *;
2 5 ii iliT \

It , ;ii\ ":
:X'
i

,, i r

T
3 :I' \
5
f i LZ -~L-.S~ ;V
~17L-s3r~ r" P~TiC~

Left:
Fig. 7 Jean-Paul Jungmann (with Utopie), Right:
Dyodan (pneumatic I. residential cells), 1967.
main house; 2. children; 3. playroom; I. rest-room; 2. library; 3. top bedroom;
A flexible cellular system
4. guest-room; 5. intended
conservatory; to allow
4. bathroom; 5. studio; 6. terrace;
for an extensive variety of 7.configurations
6. winter-garden; swimming-pool 7. living room
and additions.

direction: an acceptance of the existing order of things, a virtual one, in contact with materials but also with the
inequalities and tensions included. It is as if the political flows of information that structure the world.29 This
and social ideals that accompanied the emergence of the duality should be questioned, imprinted as it is with a
modern condition--ideals whose ambiguity Manfredo kind of cultural otherworldliness, for these information
Tafuri denounced-had been definitively rejected in favor flows belong to the broader domain of merchandise,
of a search for economic and programmatic efficiency. In in the same way as most cultural goods, from the book to
this respect it is symptomatic to observe the pervasive the DVD. The real doubling of the subject is more likely
rejection by architects of utopian ambitions, as if one a reflection of the split between the body and purchasing
had to forget an unresolved past for the sake of a more power than that of the famous line between the real and
realist present. Nor does this prevent designers like Rem the virtual that is so often invoked, whether in celebra-
Koolhaas or Bernard Tschumi from recycling techniques tion or lament. The users of Sendai are certainly not an
drawn from the "radical" projects of the early seventies.28 exception to the rule, their physical bodies and their
Once marked by utopian thinking, these techniques are purchasing powers being equally courted by providers of
now made to work in the service of tangible goals, in all sorts of services. The political and social utopia that
accordance with the logic of globalization. accompanied the emergence of the modern condition for
Contrary to what is often claimed, it is not the risk of the project seem desperately absent from the manipula-
dematerialization that looms over contemporary tions that arise from digital culture today.
architecture, but rather the loss of all political and social Should one be alarmed by their absence? Architec-
bearings, in a world where devotion to programmatic ture, as we said, is much like a haunted house, and
and economic efficiency is king. In such a world, the ghosts of modernity have not yet had their final
architecture no longer seems equipped to engage word. Even as their power seems about to vanish
anything more than the physical individual and the with the development of computer-aided design, they
consumer: the body and the credit card. In discussing his whisper in the ears of whoever will listen to old stories of
Sendai Mediatheque, Toyo Ito willingly acknowledges projects that might be inseparably aesthetic, political,
the doubling of the subject into a physical identity and and social.

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