The Frame of the Ungraspable

(or) The innocence of denial

Published in L’Atelier Magazin N°15, 2018 — http://latelier.epfl.ch/

« The floating pool — an enclave of purification traversing contaminated surroundings seemed an appropriate model, modest yet radical, for a gradual programme of improving the World through architecture, a first step. [...]

One day they discovered that if they swam in unison — in regular synchronized laps from one end of the pool to the other — the pool would begin to move slowly in the opposite direction. They were amazed at this involuntary locomotion; actually, it was explained by a simple law of physics: action = reaction. »(1)

Heading ironically to Moscow, the manifesto advanced in a retroactive way towards New York. The constructivist pool was an enclave of control for the swimmers, the calm clarity of its water was necessary for them to face the wild and troubled water of the ocean. As physicists would have needed an axiom or a frame of reference to elaborate any thoughts, they needed the pool to keep at distance the ungraspable phantom of life. It was a simple rectangle of order ignoring the stormy waves of the sea, a utopia in denial.  

A frame of reference is also the denial architecture has to offer.

Simple geometricalization — the use of order — of primary forms — squares, circles, triangles, and many other simple geometrical shapes along with their three-dimensional versions — are all quite rare in nature. While walking in a landscape, we are surrounded by very complex elements whereas humans seem to build their own environments using the most intelligible forms as possible. In this sense, human creations seem to follow the rules of legibility, and are therefore specific because of their excessively simple geometric character. Orthogonality is the most common relation in architecture and expresses an intention to reach control and order. Architecture holds the role of an enclave of control for the inhabitant, a frame of reference:  the clarity of its design is necessary for them to face the wild and complex character of life and nature. In an ungraspable world where one cannot understand the laws that are directing one’s life, architecture proposes an enclave of control and understanding. Everybody has once tried to picture what an infinite universe meant and ended up overheating before falling into an existential vertigo. Fortunately, as the rest of us, your conclusion was "Actually, it is not important, I don't care, I am fine with my life and at least I think I understand it!”; that is what we call a healthy denial. And that is precisely what architecture has to offer, a comfortable frame, a frame of reference to live in a healthy denial and move forward. Somehow, the use of simple geometry is extremely human: it is an attempt to reconnect with an original human need which happens to also be one of the permanent purpose of architecture; producing a frame of control and comfort in opposition to nature.

This will to provide order to the world corresponds to a necessity to offer a way to read and use an environment in constant movement, that seem to be impossible to be entirely understood for mankind. Alberti’s attempt to define perspective as a method for representing the world — the subject of De Pictura — reveals this desire. He used what he called an « intersection »(2): a gridded veil which was positioned between the subject and the artist. Too complex to be easily reproduced, the vision of nature needed to be superimposed by a grid to become legible and usable. In similar ways, the entire world is seen through the prism of order — the planet is divided in latitudes and longitudes — countries are often defined by very geometrical legal borders — the territory is segmented by cadastral plans — and buildings are defined by as regularized dimensions as possible.

This frame is not only spatial, but also temporal: architecture can be the guiding threat through the constant movements of life. In the sense that the essential theory of Maurice Halbwachs already explained in La mémoire collective(3): architecture is the support of memory through the passage of time. People are always transforming their environment to their image, and at the same time are being transformed by their environment, which is made of resistant elements created by past generations or that are primordially present. Therefore, a dialectic between people and their environment is established and becomes a guiding thread for society. The frames that we define are nothing more than indispensable catalysts of our development in space and time.

As our physiologic memory, the persistence of the past is not carried without modifications; made by ourselves, by the interaction with our environment, and by society. In this sense, memory — and analogically the persistent frames that we can provide as architects — can be seen as a malleable base that allows to construct oneself in a dialectic way. In opposition with determinism, Henri Bergson explains in Matière et mémoire(4) his belief that it is necessary to dissociate the conservation of remembrances and the modification of oneself induced by this conservation. Whereas some could argue that the creation of frames imposes a determinism that limits the possibilities, Bergson would argue that on the contrary, their definition leads to the permanent transformation of the one who carries his history with him. In this sense, memory is not the heavy weight of an irreversible and determinist past, but rather the possibility of liberty. (It is not indifferent that Halbwachs was a diligent listener of Bergson's courses).

Following this logic, architecture can be seen as the permanent frame opposed to the ever-changing nature of life – the transient. In 1988, explaining his intimate vision of architecture, Aldo Rossi published Autobiographia Scientifica. For him — « architecture is like a primary element onto which life is grafted »(5) — « Architecture should be sparsely characterized; it must be manifested only to the extent that it serves the imagination or the action: even the dreary functionalists partially understood this »(6)

In this sense, architecture is the theatre of the possible. It is a construction which tries to anticipate actions before they occur within the suggested frame. Thus, architecture is the permanent scene of an unknown scenario — It has to do with planning and space — It is the abstract relation between materialization and void — it is the creation of an inviting frame for human activities.

For Rossi, buildings are catalyzers of action; they contain latent scenarios ready to unfold. It is their responsibility to be silently implicit — full of meaning and potentials — to inspire life. For this reason, the architecture of Aldo Rossi seems to be a moment out of time; a suspended reality that contains the energy of a future event.

By chance the materiality and the temporality of architecture is so specific that we have the possibility to create rather convincing frame of reference in space and time. If some buildings took longer than a human life to be built, some are still standing 6000 years after they were erected. As Koolhaas stated at the 2016 AIA convention, « Architecture stands with one leg in a world that’s 3,000 years old and another leg in the 21st century »(7). Thanks to this possibility to create a strongly rooted architecture, we can produce very convincing illusions of stability and understanding; perfect frames for denial and happiness. This is not a pessimistic or cynical statement; it is amazing that we – as humans – can make our world inhabitable and convince ourselves of its comfortable legibility!

So! Architects, please do your job, stop making damn ephemeral installations, and give tangible permanent frames of clarity for people to hold on to through the troubled water!

1_Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan, New York, 1978

2_Leon Battista Alberti, De Pictura, 1435

3_Maurice Halbwachs, La mémoire collective, Paris, 1950

4_Henri Bergson, Matière et mémoire: essai sur la relation du corps à l’esprit, Paris, 1896

5_Aldo Rossi, Autobiografia scientifica, Milano, 1981

6_Ibidem 

7_Rem Koolhaas, interview; 2016 AIA convention, 2016