A D V E N -TURES AT THE EDGEOF HYPER-REALITYan extended essay about architecture and the modern media by David Lomax

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_a study of commercial logos by architects Diller and Scofidio

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INTRODUCTION//adventures at the edge of hyperreality

In this document, originally written in the Winter of �00�, I aimed to explore the conditions in which architecture was (and possibly still is) produced. In order to understand the way architecture is produced, I believe we have to work backwards, from the way in which it is consumed, and by extension, the virtues to which it aspires. Therefore, I proposed to look at the system in which architects consume architecture, in turn the way in which their own architectures are consumed, and then establish the manner in which relative ‘value’ is then applied to these architectures.

This investigation posits that The System of Objects by Jean Baudrillard is of key importance in this domain, and worthy of re-reading form a specifically architectural perspective. This is my starting point. By establishing the architectural relevance of Baudrillards system, where the virtualilty of consumption takes precedence over the physically real, creating what Baudrillard describes as ‘hyper-reality’. When we can understand the relevance of this hyper-reality, we can start to look at the incidents which test its edges, where architects start to directly engage this system of consumption. For too long architects have been mere unsuspecting victims of this, or worse still, unsuspecting manipulators. Very few have consciously gripped this new context of hyper-reality and manipulated it to their own ends. I would like to look at a few of these adventures in hyper-reality, and extract some of the methods by which architects can start to exist and practice efficiently within the new context.

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I will study individual practices and incidents, focusing particularly on Rem Koolhaas’ OMA in the culmination of the first section, as a practice which is keenly aware of the neccesity for a new method of production at the start of a new century. Before this though, I will plot the route which I trace from the pure theory of consumption as it is laid out by Baudrillard, and the pracitice of designing spaces. As well as this, I intend to recount several anecdotal accounts of encounters with the system, notably ‘Teflon’ a project for the Liverpool Biennial �00� and an account of a discussion with a group of young artists from Static Gallery in Liverpool. In this volume, these can be found at the end of the main text.

Finally, I would like to lead a specific investigation, another re-reading, this time reading architecture from a Baudrillardian perspective, rather than vice-versa, as in the first section. In Herzog and de Meuron, we see a practice which seems to be very aware of the methods it needs to employ to succeed in this hyperreality which now pervades. No longer the victim of an overbearing regime, H and dM become the masters of the system, bending it to their own ends and constructing a valid architecture from it.

By performing this investigation in to the world of the hyperreal, I hope to present the reader with a set of tools of his own, upon which to expand, or which to discard from a newly informed perspective. Either way, I would like to stimulate an awareness of what I see as a pervasive and unavoidable sytem which has so far marginalised architecture, complicit with its own practitioners to exile the profession as obselete. I believe that this exile can be reversed, through an understanding of the system of objects, and architects can return their profession to a relevance within the consumer society.

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FINDING THE EDGE

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1. FINDING THE EDGE//an architectural reading of Baudrillard’s ‘le systeme des objets’

In 19�8, Jean Baudrillard published a volume entitled ‘Le Systeme des Objets’. I would like to discuss in this chapter how I believe that this book describes an important (new?) context in which architecture can, and must, exist. Not only must it exist here, but it must also learn to actively engage with this new context.

To set the scene, architects for at least twenty years, have observed the death of style, indeed, if Rem Koolhaas is to believed, the death of architecture. Increasingly, in the architecture of companies like Koolhaas’ OMA in Rotterdam and Basle based Herzog and De Meuron, companies whose whole production is virtually contained within that last twenty years, shows no discernable ‘style’. The consistency in this mode of architecture can no longer be found directly in a recognisable aesthetic. Despite this, if that is the correct phrase to use, these are two of the highest profile practices in the world. Interestingly as well, brand conscious designer labels, like Prada, feel confident selecting them to design a store identities for them over the world, despite the lack of coherence either with each other, or in themselves. I believe that Baudrillard’s writings can help to explain this, in opposition (or coexistence if you prefer) to the self brand creation of practices like Frank O. Gehry’s.

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_VERS UN CONTEXTE NOUVEAU

‘…today [1968], objects do not respond to one another, they communicate – they have no individual presence but merely, at best, an overall coherence attained by virtue of their simplification as components of a code, and the way their relationships are calculated[1].’

When Baudrillard discusses the System of Objects, he is discussing the syntax of this code, which governs the way we perceive and attribute value to the objects around us. Also, importantly, he discusses the mechanism by which objects are abstracted, in order to become the words which slot into this syntax, its lexicon. This mechanism is an important one to understand, as it is one to which architecture has provided great resistance. Baudrillard’s key opening discourse, note, is specifically concerning interior design, the transient veneer of architecture, and not architecture per se. I will discuss later, how architecture might almost be considered along with Baudrillard’s ‘Marginal Objects’.

There are two major presuppositions of Baudrillard’s system. The first, is that externalisation of existence is now inevitable. That is to say that the family unit, or the individual can no longer be insular, either geographically (the house), or in terms of their psychological input (learning opportunities/advertising). The TV and the automobile, amongst other inventions, have negated this. This also means that consumption[�] is also externalised. The second, is that all objects can be mass [re]produced, with the exception of ‘marginal objects’, which include antiques, i.e. objects which have perceived ‘authenticity’.

[1] p. ��, ‘The System Of Objects’, by Jean Baudrillard (James Benedict trans.) first pub. In French as Le Systeme des Objets in 19�8 by Editions Gallimard. This version published by Verso, London, 199�.[�] In the first instance, of objects, but also in the general sense.

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In a scenario where the user has a multifarious choice of mass produced options with similar or identical functions, he must use another mechanism to ascribe value to one over another, i.e. to make choice. This is the beginning of the mechanism by which the object may be abstracted to a sign. The realisation of a pure, technically optimised form of an object, or pure functionalism, represents what Baudrillard describes as a ‘liberation’ for that object. This is, however, a false liberation of the object, for it still remains placed within a system of societal expectations of it. He cites the example of the coffee grinder, which I shall use slightly differently to Baudrillard. The coffee grinder performs the basic function of grinding coffee, but what are the connotations of owning a coffee grinder, of being someone who prefers not to buy pre ground coffee, what is the (functionally dissociated) shape of the grinder? Is it [expensive] stainless steel, or [cheap] plastic? It is now, when the function of the object is optimised and pure, that the form, and the desire to own such an object comes to be shaped by its position in a system of societal opinions and values.

Having established then, as the quote which opens this section expounds, that objects in isolation have no inherent value, then we come to the method of combination which ascribes them value. There are two concepts again, which are important. Firstly the metaphor of the house / interior design, and secondly, the notion of the ‘model’. Both are especially relevant to our discussion.

Baudrillard uses the metaphor of the house as a location for interior design to illustrate the way in which an individual uses objects as constituents of a system with relative values. Again, his insistence that the individual, and hence the dwelling, are externalised by their continuing exposure to mass media and mass production is important

[�] Baudrillard’s position appears to be that the conditioning of modern man to making value judgements based on a wide and externalised system, means that he must externalise himself and his home in order to make sense of them, through their comparison and possible negation. He cites the reduction in the use of internalising devices such as the mirror and the clock in interior design as evidence of this.

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in the constitution of his argument[�]. He discusses a fundamental shift in that the home becomes no longer primarily a dwelling, but primarily a place to welcome guests. The home, through the automation of tasks and the increased emphasis on the notion of leisure time over the last century or so. This, in tandem means a reduction in work space, and a reduction in work time in the home, allowing this fundamental shift. Once this is given, one understands that the home can be used to create what you might call a sentence. In the same way in which a poet, using the syntax and lexicon of a language, will construct a very precise meaning within an individual sentence, so can the house owner project to his peers very precise information about status, wealth, taste, even political preference by the objects which he chooses to associate himself with, chosen from the syntax and lexicon of the System of Objects. Possibly a better still translation of the metaphor of the house than a sentence, is a ‘frame’[�], for reasons which will become apparent. The author suggests that man has become able to see,

‘…beyond the utility they [objects] have for him, to project onto them his game plan, his calculations, his discourse, and invest these manoeuvres themselves with a sense of a message to others, and a message to oneself.[5]’

Baudrillard uses another metaphor, which is of three systems of furniture which offer infinite reinterpretations from a kit of limited parts, based on the owners own selection. The controlling role of a consumer is important here, the ability to select and compose from this given syntax of objects. It is important, also, to note that once the consumer has established this complex, framed image of himself in the universal language, the person himself becomes almost obsolete. The human figure is not included in the syntax except in terms of his objectification. Advertisers

[�]The use of the term ‘frame’ is my own, and I will use it from now on to refer to this ‘personality code’ assemblage of objects.[�] p. ��, ‘The System Of Objects’, by Jean Baudrillard (James Benedict trans.) first pub. In French as Le Systeme des Objets in 19�8 by Editions Gallimard. This version published by Verso, London, 199�.

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and film makers have picked up on the prevalence of the code over actual substance, and have begun to use it actively, provenly and with success. Architects, as yet, have done so only sporadically. I shall return to this point briefly.

To touch on the second important concept which I mentioned above, the model. Models arise directly from the ability to create such framed compositions which are possible to completely divest of their authors. Baudrillard mentions home style and DIY magazines[�]. He cites them, as I read it, as mechanisms whereby other ‘frames’ of code are presented, not so that one might aspire to the actual objects they include, but in order to asses the relative value of those objects and that frame as a composition, in relation to the system. This is a secondary system, a hierarchy or social stratification if you like. It is not the fact that people are able to compare their ‘frames’ with other ‘model frames’ in order to establish self worth by proxy to their objects which is the most interesting part of this. Instead, it is the continued externalisation of the self, and more pertinently, the method of doing so. It seems now, that a mediated ‘frame’ can have an influence over the value judgements of individuals and society, and it is from here that we can assess the importance of the media, magazines and television as cultural impetus. This, you might say is readily apparent to the lay person, but what we have learnt, is an understanding of why this is the case, and thus how it can be manipulated. It slowly becomes apparent that publication is very important in the assessment of value, and that the medium for publication is, in both the metaphoric and real sense, the frame. I will return to a quote which I intend to use more than once in this document, taken from an essay by architectural film maker, Patrick Keiller,

[�] Such as on p. 1�, when he quotes Betty Pepys, Le guide pratique de la decoration (p.1��)

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‘Most film space is off screen – it’s either remembered from preceding images….or merely the imaginary extension of the space on screen. Because it is reconstructed in this way, film space is always a fiction, even if the film is a documentary.’[7]

In this way, the frame and its attendant reality becomes paramount. The formulation of a new context is founded here.

[�] A quote from p.�8 of, ‘This Is Not Architecture – Media Constructions’, chapter �, ‘Architectural Cinematography’ by Patrick Keiller, edited by Kester Rattenbury, pub. �00� by Routledge

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_THE NEW CONTEXT IN ARCHITECTURE

Although architects, in the most part, have been denying the existence of this new context in as much as they can, many other producers have firmly gripped the opportunities that it offers. In her popularly received volume, ‘NO LOGO’ Naomi Klein makes this early observation,

‘At around this same time, a new kind of corporation began to rival the traditional all-American manufacturers for market share; these were the Nikes, Microsoft’s and later, the Tommy Hilfigers and Intels. These pioneers made the bold claim that producing goods was only an incidental part of their operations....What these companies produced primarily were not things, they said, but images of their brands’[8] Klein’s’ assessment of the prevalence of image, and brand over the technology of the product is a rather less philosophical one than that of Baudrillard, but I believe it feeds directly into the same volume of knowledge. What it does prove is that this method of production is a product of advanced stage capitalism, and as such is not only commercially viable as a tactic, but even voraciously pervasive as the only method with any hope to prosper. As such, Klein quotes the 1998 United Nations Human Development Report, ‘the growth in ad spending “now outpaces the growth of the world economy by one third.”

The American new town Celebration, created by Disney, is an interesting case in point as to relating Baudrillard’s theory into spatial connotation, via the all consuming importance of the brand, the sale of a constructed image. Klein’s impression of celebration was,

[8] p.�, ‘NO LOGO’, Naomi Klein, pub. Flamingo, London, �000

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‘For the families who live there year-round, Disney has achieved the ultimate goal of lifestyle branding: for the brand to become life itself.....Celebration is less futurism than homage, an idealized recreation of the liveable America that existed before malls, big box sprawl, freeways, amusement parks and mass commercialisation. Oddly enough, Celebration is not even a sales vehicle for Mickey Mouse licensed products; it is, in contemporary terms, a Disney free town – no doubt the only one left in America. In other words, when Disney finally reached its fully enclosed, synergised, self-sufficient space, it chose to create a pre-Disneyfied world – its calm, understated aesthetics are the antithesis of the cartoon world for sale down the freeway at Disneyworld.’[9]

Klein hints that she believes Disney to be eulogising the pre-Disney world, recognising their folly and giving back to the world a Disney/capitalism free space. I believe however, that Disney here is acting like the media, say, a magazine, and Celebration can be likened to a feature in that magazine. It represents the frame as I described it before, collecting together a series of objects each chosen for their very specific spaces in that hierarchy/syntax of objects which we discussed earlier to present that, ‘…game plan, … calculations, … discourse, and invest[ing] these manoeuvres themselves with a sense of a message to others.’[10]

Now, in the same way that collecting a series of interior photos in an issue of Wallpaper invests them with a further, conglomerate message in relation to the System, collecting a series of physical ‘frames’ under the umbrella of Disney acts in much the same way. The meaning of Celebration, and its worth is already fixed within that context, and so direct, physical adverts become unnecessary. This way, we begin to see how spaces begin to be constructed to directly

[9] ibid. p1��[10] Again, from p. ��, ‘The System Of Objects’, by Jean Baudrillard (James Benedict trans.) first pub. In French as Le Systeme des Objets in 19�8 by Editions Gallimard. This version published by Verso, London, 199�.

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interact with the System of Objects. Decisions in the design of Celebration were made, or so it seems to me, directly in response to the method in which we now consume objects (and by proxy the spaces which they constitute) as part of a system and code. A key factor to note here, is that the presence of Disney, as does the presence of Wallpaper lends a context to Celebration, but the process is a reciprocal one, in that the presence of Celebration as an item in the code itself also alters the composition of the ‘frame’ which is Disney. To repeat a quote from earlier in the discussion,

‘…today [1968], objects do not respond to one another, they communicate – they have no individual presence but merely, at best, an overall coherence attained by virtue of their simplification as components of a code, and the way their relationships are calculated.’[11] So not only does Disney allow the value of Celebration to be assessed in a wider context, so does Celebration also alter the understanding of Disney in the wider context.

It is this understanding which allows corporations to customise their spaces in a way which is more readily annexed into this code of understanding which is now the lingua franca of the public at large. As I mentioned at the very beginning of this section, a company like Prada is now able to use its understanding of how to use the connotations that their personal assemblage of choices carry.

Calvin Klein, in the early nineties, chose David Chipperfield to design for them a flagship store in New York. This choice (although no doubt a successful one) was very simplistically based on an aesthetic correlation between the designs of the two firms. The use of this simple aesthetic correlation does not take advantage of the inherent stability which

[11] p. ��, ‘The System Of Objects’, by Jean Baudrillard (James Benedict trans.) first pub. In French as Le Systeme des Objets in 19�8 by Editions Gallimard. This version published by Verso, London, 199�.

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a the System of Objects provides. Had they chosen an architect based on the perceived value of the work they do[1�] they would find themselves invulnerable to changes in aesthetic fashion, as changes in relations of status within the System happen much more slowly and infrequently. They protect themselves against the necessary changes in the working style of such an architect[1�], as Charles Jencks said,

‘Architects have to reinvent themselves every ten years, I call it the ten year rule; it’s necessary because of course fashion changes, real things change and taste changes and to stay on top you really do have to reinvent yourself….every ten years.’[14]

This, obviously works both ways. An architect who works within a system of codes rather than an aesthetic can surely be more viable for repeat work and long term working associations. Prada has started to choose architects who work in this way, despite themselves having a fairly consistent and narrow aesthetic style. Also we could consider the computer company Apple who were discussed briefly earlier.

[1�] By this I mean the position in the system of objects which they tend to occupy with their designs. Naturally, this is fed by the choices of objects they make and so the ‘frames’ they create. Of course, the way in which they are mediated, the magazines in which they appear and their level of ‘fame’ is important, as Disney is to Celebration, so that they can be ‘fixed’ in terms of their value and the status they confer.[1�] By rendering it virtually irrelevant.[1�] Charles Jencks in interview with Julia Chance, �001,

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_two apple stores in new york

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A recent article contrasted two stores in New York which were designed in the almost diametrically opposed modes of high style and über kitsch, pictured left. They cannot be unified in terms of the direct aesthetic mode of Apple design, but only in terms of the frame / lifestyle choice. Extremes of style or kitsch represent the societal and systemic position in which Apple have fixed themselves, i.e. out-of-the-norm. Again, it is the ability of the architect to assemble a frame from the code which arises from the System of Objects, which allows him to operate successfully in the current climate. The fact that one of these shops is designed by ‘veteran architect Peter Bohlin’, and the other by, ‘Co-owner Dick Demenus….’ is symptomatic of the fact that what architects are really failing to do, is to converse in the same code as their audience, at least not in a structured manner for the most part. Article writer Craig Kellogg says,

‘In the backlash against Postmodernism, professionals have mostly given up trying to intimidate the locals. Meanwhile, vernacular folk like Demenus don’t give a damn about established principles of retailing.’[15]

Although his direction here is slightly different, I think that he has stumbled upon something quite important, that incidental designers, who design 90% of our environment, do not contemplate, they act instinctively within a system to which they are accustomed. The architect’s malaise is how to remain a designer when design is increasingly a process of selection and recomposition, and therefore a process in which each one of us is proficient. The new context in architecture demands a skill in the creation of a value for an architecture which is malleable and sustainable in the face of the fixity of architecture and its aesthetic. The new context is defined by modes of consumption in almost constant flux.

[1�] p111. Essay entitled ‘Apple Core Values’ by Craig Kellogg within ‘Food and Architecture’, Architectural Design Vol.�� #�, Nov/Dec �00�, ed. Helen Castle, pub. Wiley Academy �00�,

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Architecture has for too long considered itself marginal to this kind of system, but can no longer demand a stable context in which to operate.

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_ARCHITECTURE THE MARGINAL OBJECT

When Baudrillard discusses the marginal object, his description seems to approach one of the former conditions of architecture, the old context whose influence still lingers pervasively.

Marginal objects, for Baudrillard, are objects which are seemingly outside of his ‘hyperreality’. These objects are the ones which are seemingly without function, the antiques, exotica, curios and natural objects which we trade and bring into our homes. These objects, by their very nature, are self referential. Within themselves they are useless (defunct or distant in use), and inasmuch lies their fascination. The value of the antique, for example lies purely in its existence. Authenticity is the goal for the marginal object, as authenticity embodies one of the few commodities unavailable for abstraction within the system of objects, time. Longevity and continued existence are the embodiment of time past, and the exotica is the embodiment, along a similar vein, of distances unattainable. The use of an object such as this lies entirely in what it signifies, and that fact that the signified is remote (temporally / spatially) means that the relationship between signified and signifier is static, the value of the antique is only that it exists, to testify to the existence of something else. This might lead to the natural conclusion that the value of the object too, is static. Marginal objects cannot be ascribed a value conventionally within Baudrillards system, as authenticity is an absolute value. One object cannot be more or less authentic than another, therefore a process of comparison cannot be used to establish value. What is obvious is that we do ascribe varying values to, for example the antique object, both monetarily and

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academically. What Baudrillard puts forward in explanation of this is a marginal system, ‘collecting’.

He asserts, based on his understanding of hyperreality, that , Every object has two functions – to be put to use, and to be possessed. When one considers that the marginal object, as such, has no function, then only the faculty of its possession remains. Value is ascribed only based on our desire to own the marginal object. An object which is outside of our possession acquires a higher value because of that, and its value over other marginal objects which we do not possess, is invariably set by its inclusion n a collection. That is to say that its value is set based on a set of relations rooted in taxonomy and classification, not on societal values. Taxonomy is fixed, societal perception is not, so it is the taxonomy which is most relevant to the marginal object. Value is ascribed based on this order, and the degrees to which it is owned. If I own every Victoria Cross awarded in WW�, bar one, for that one, I will be prepared to pay a high price. Value set by place in a taxonomy relevant to ownership. This can easily be re-read with direct relevance to architecture.

Architecture, as it has been read regularly, is analogous to the antique. It has the peculiar ability to remain in existence for vast periods of time, and so is often the method by which we condense and signify time for our own understanding. Not only this, but architecture is often taken as the symbol not only of distant times, but also distant places. Buildings, are fundamentally authentic, even down to the fact that they cannot move from the site of their origination, not easily any way. So this presents to us a particular problem for architecture the marginal object, how does one collect it? If it has authenticity, then its value is absolute unless it is entered into a taxonomy, and yet further, until it is possessed.

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The bridge for this, is the photograph.

The essay ‘On the Origins of Architectural Photography’, by James Ackerman in Kester Rattenbury’s compilation, ‘This is Not Architecture’, lays down the beginnings of the genre, and its explicit foundation in a desire to collect, order and categorise architecture as the evidence of other times / places, and to ascribe value to architecture by its inclusion in the order, necessarily demoting architectures which were outside of the collection as of lesser value / quality. Ackerman describes the mechanism of early documentary photography in terms of who paid for it. In 18�1, the French Government commission pioneer photographers to undertake the Mission Heliographiques’, documenting national monuments and public buildings. In his words, ‘the photographer was obliged as far as possible to restrain as far as possible personal inclination and the appeal to the taste of his time’. In England, a similar organisation was shortly to be established, the Architectural Photographic Association. Its stated aim was, ‘procuring and supplying to its members, photographs of architectural works of all countries to benefit the architectural profession by obtaining absolutely correct representations of these works, and, to the public by diffusing a knowledge of the best examples of architecture and thereby promoting an increased interest and love of the art’.

It must be remembered, that at this time two things which are taken for granted now, were not when this transposition of the authentic architectural object first began. Firstly, the early photographers were convinced of the role of the photograph as the exact likeness of its subject. We now are accustomed to the inevitable impossibility of an ‘absolutely correct representation’ by a photograph. Secondly, photographs then were not reproducible in large quantities then, as they are now. To all intents and purposes,

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the photograph, as an exact and singular likeness of the building was able to carry through the authenticity of the original for purposes of its ownership and categorisation. This laid the foundations for what are now our received expectations of the role of architecture, and these have coloured our preconception of ‘good architecture’ ever since. It is position in a taxonomy rather than comparison in a wider system which, to this day seems the natural means of ascribing value to architecture.

However, based on our current understanding of the role of the photo, its necessity in delivering architecture the marginal object carries a difficult contradiction. The photograph now, is the common currency of the hyperreal, the venue of that assemblage of connotations which Baudrillard describes, and ultimately, a transitory medium. The oxymoron is that architecture has its value ascribed by a rigid system (taxonomy), in order to enter into this taxonomy, it must be mediated in a format which demands a simultaneous consumption in another system, which is by definition in flux (the hyperreal). The difficulty for architecture lies in the realisation that it is at once marginal and mainstream, at once static and in flux. Architecture occupies a peculiar position, not in the mainstream or the marginal, but at the edge of hyperreality.

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_ARCHITECTURE AT THE EDGE

One of the key issues for architects who are beginning to acknowledge the relevance of this in-between space to the profession, is the ability to understand the layering of information and implication embodied in the photograph and its presentation. Following Ackermans discussion of the documentary style of early architectural photography in ‘This is Not Architecture’, is a section on ‘Iconic Photographs’ which provides some interesting clues as to the continuing relevance of this in-between space to architects, and the necessity to gain control over the machine for acquiring a value, the photograph. I would like to focus on three examples from this collection.

Firstly there are the photos of Mies’ Weimar Pavilion for the Barcelona Expo. These photos are the paean of marginal architecture as mediated by photography. The original pavilion, which they record, no longer exists, so all authenticity, all actuality of the architecture is transferred directly and completely to the photos. They are the architecture. You will note that they also conform to Ackermans notions of early documentary photography. Absent are people and ‘foreign objects’ it is just the architecture presented in strong perspectival composition. There is a complete denial of any exteriority to the photographic frame, this photo is a marginal object, and as such an architecture.

Contrast this with the archetypal Baudrillardian collages of Archigram. This is a step away from a marginal authenticity, and an attempt to engage with the hyperreal. Archigram were, indisputably, image makers, they produced only that. Their use of collage plays directly with the aim of reconfiguring

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compilations of ‘objects’ with their own inherent values and codes to create new codes, with a new and appreciable value within hyperreality. What is contentious though, is their architectural ‘worth’,

‘Theoretic propositions? You must be joking, caballero! Archigram is short on theory, long on draughtsmanship and craftsmanship. They’re in the image business and they’ve been blessed with the power to create some of the most powerful images of our time.’[16]

Despite their outrageous success in producing a consumable architecture, there is always the niggling desire for an authenticity which is not satisfied. There is always the ‘but’, somewhere in the sentence when discussing Archigram, and hence the raised eyebrows at the recent award of the RIBA Gold Medal to the group. Again though, it is through the mediation of the archtecture which establishes its worth. In a way, Archigrams work exists in just the same space as the Weimar Pavilion. Just as that need never have existed because the image is the architecture, so it is for Archigram.

Because we are not only architects, but also consumers,we can be buy into Archigram, we are convinced of its worth, somehow. We are able to classify a non-existant physcality as though it exists, because it is presented to us in exaxctly the same format in which we normally consume our architecture. Archigram, of course, was even a magazine in itself. They show us the possibility for an architecture with a value that exists entirely in hyperreality, but they do not show us the implications for designing spaces.

A more sophisticated investigation into the implications of this double existence, involving the manipulation of real space, is to be found in the photos of the Villa Savoye,

[1�] p.� ‘Archigram’, ‘A comment from Peter Reyner Banham’ by Reyner Banham, Peter Cook (ed.), 19��, re-issued in 1999, Princeton Architectural Press, New York.

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and the Villa at Garches by Le Corbusier. Although these predate Archigram, it is easy to see that they show a more advanced synopsis of the marginal object and a hyperreal medium. What he starts to do is invest the authentic image with ‘alien’ objects. Not only are the objects extra to the architecture, but they are fakes, they are inauthentic. The received code of the architectural photo is subverted and given a position in the hyperreal by objects like Le Corbusiers own hat and glasses, which have no ‘real’ connection to the space, physically or functionally[1�]. This is a first stage in the understanding of how the photo can be manipulated to fix the value of the authentic object within the hyperreal. The photo becomes a hyperreal construction, including the architecture. It maintains its authenticity throughout. His doctored photos of Villa Schwob, published in l’Esprit Nouveau in 19�1 also show that an architecture which does not strictly exist, can become authentic once the process of marginalisation through photography is manipulated. What these do not achieve, still though, is the translation of this understanding back into design decisions. Real space is still not manipulated in order to affect hyperreality, it is only the hyperreal which is altered in retrospect to the real.

A further extrapolation of this conflict is to be found in the much discussed example of Pierre Koenigs Case Study House #��, as it was documented by Julius Shulman. Kester Rattenbury’s discussion of the piece centres around the fact that architectural editors desired a view of ‘pure architecture’ as opposed to the inhabited ‘two girls’ shot that became famous in other publications and in Shulman’s own publication. When we consider the construction of a model from objects in Baudrillard’s code, making the, ‘overall coherence attained by virtue of their simplification as components of a code’, we see that Shulmans more famous photograph, considered unsuitable for the architectural

[1�] but possibly in terms of the taxonomy, as symbols of the authorship, a category / collection

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press is able to manipulate the perception of an object and so its value, depending on the context in which it is to be viewed. In his ‘two girls’ photo, he is not portraying an architecture, but a way of living, a model, defined by objects within the frame, which bring their inherent value from outside that frame to establish the value of the picture as a whole. By proxy, the value of the architectural component of the frame, for which the consumer has no other comparison, is ascribed based on the value of the ‘frame’ as a whole. Thus the hyperreal value of the architecture was constructed, in a way more calculating and professionally motivated than Le Corbusier (as the production of this is Shulmans profession, not the production of the authentic object). Shulman came to the house shortly after its completion, and empty. The furniture was brought in, and the girls are the girlfriends of two university students who were helping with the shooting. The image is a fabrication, but the value is real.

The architectural editors demanded instead the image of an absolute and marginal architecture, necessary for it to be placed within their collection, the magazine. However, our experience of the award of the RIBA Gold Medal to Archigram confirms our ability to apply, to some extent, our experience as consumers to our understanding of architecture. Was the editor right to demand marginality from his photographer? Well I had never seen the naked photo before I was presented with it in Rattenbury’s book, whereas I was already a firm admirer of the ‘two girls’ shot. Maybe this is a truly professional attempt at reconciling in one image a hyperreal and a marginal value.

A similar collection to the one mentioned above is the Architects Journal. A certain value is ascribed to architectures featured in the collection, they are assumed to be, to a certain extent ‘good’ by their inclusion. Every

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year, the Journal runs a competition between Small Projects, up to £��0,000 in value, the shortlist and the results of which are published in the magazine. As the common currency, the authentic object which is featured in the magazine is the photograph, the entry requirements are only that a practice submit up to � photographic slides, plus a brief written synopsis. Once shortlisted, the practice submits an A1 presentation board, by comparison of which, the winner is selected. Such is the authenticity of the photograph as the absolute representation of the marginal object, that it is this which is compared, divorced from the notion of spatial quality or experience. To this end, a company I worked for in East London during my year out, have realised the importance in engaging specialists in order to create a suitable presentation which is able to win such a competition. They have a regular photographer, Chris Gascoigne at View, and they have continued a professional relationship with myself as a graphic designer since I left their employ a year and a half ago. Basically, the entry last year which won them second prize was a product not only of the architect (producing the marginal component) but also of the photographer and the graphic designer (producing the hyperreal component). We will use the same combination of designers again this year, as I have recently been engaged to design another presentation for this years competition. This mode of production then, is not purely the domain of high or theoretical architecture, but is equally relevant to a small practice of eight people in East London.

What is also interesting, is that when such resources are poured into the production of the hyperreal image from the marginal object, does a strictly real architecture have any more validity than a series of real architectures presented together as one? What if a firm was to present a series of their best details, along with their best elevation, from a series of different buildings, then they might win

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the competition with a non-existent, but physically real architecture. The need for authenticity could be satiated whilst also manipulating the opportunities of hyperreality to boost its perceived value. The ability to reconfigure a series of disjunct images (possibly styles) using the rigid orders of taxonomy in combination with the fluid order of hyperreality is what leaves us teetering on the edge of an irrelevance of style, architecture in its traditional sense, or even space. The difficulty though is to avoid this nihilism, and to produce a space which actively engages with these new inputs. A direct and architectural response is still absent.

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_FORMING THE EDGES[18]

Rem Koolhaas, and his practice, OMA have begun to work with the hyperreality which undeniably permeates the built environment. His writing is underscored by his perceived incompatibility of the city and ‘architecture’ as it is undertaken at present. Reading his work, a clear analogy can be struck between the city and hyperreality, i.e. that it is an entirety constructed of myriad different systems and constructions with their own inherent logic, but all of which have the reciprocal relationship with the whole, impacting on that whole proportionally to their own importance, or ‘size’. By extension, then, Koolhaas recognises the Baudrillardian necessity for externalisation. An individual building has no value if it cannot be considered in connection/relation with/to the system (the city) which defines it. Therefore, any real attempt to shape perceptions must happen at a scale different to that of the individual building, as it is not at the scale of the building where the context can be truly affected by architects.

‘…urbanisms work is to define the possibilities that architecture can only define and exhaust, this is because architecture cannot claim to shape the city in its own image, or even to express, with its single voice, an adequate response to the urban condition. ……. We can only conceive an entire set of relations between the city and architecture when we reject the idea that architecture gives form to the city as its own object.’[19]

In a way, this is a certain nihilism on the part of Koolhaas, and I would be prepared to challenge whether his built works overcome the problem of the building as subject to a rigorous system, a marginal one, or fully utilise the

[18] it is my intention not to illustrate this chapter, I think a lot is to be gained based on the impression we have of an architects body of work, and that colours our view of what to expect from it.[19] p. ��0-1, ‘A Surpassing Mutation’, Jean Attali, Mutations, Rem Koolhaas and Harvard ‘Project on the Ctiy’, Stefan Boeri and ‘Multiplic-ity’, Sanford Kwinter, Nadia Tazi, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Actar, Bordeaux/Barcelona, �001.

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opportunity of making a building which inhabits a flexible system of values, a hyperreal one.

Koolhaas unwittingly exposes the rigor of marginal architecture announcing the ‘End of Architectural History’, heralding ‘the promise of a post architectural future’[20], when ruminating on the Typical Plan, as a response to the ineffectuality of other architectures in the urban situation. Despite denouncing the possibility of an architectural style, he is still wrestling with the constraints of a system where taxonomy and classification is key. He has exchanged a rigorous aesthetic, for the rigor of type, the authenticity of the relic or antique, for the authenticity of the purely functional and repetitive.

‘The permanence of even the most frivolous item of architecture and the instability of the metropolis are incompatible.’, reveals his acknowledgment that an architecture which is rooted in the necessity to marginalize itself against hyperreality cannot be truly successful. Koolhaas needed here to find a better way of breaking down the stability of the marginal than to simply exchange one rigor for another. What we see as his key response, is the notion of ‘bigness’.

Bigness speaks about the necessity of architecture to tend toward a complexity made necessary by today’s context, erring away from the impossibility of the purely self referential notion of ‘honesty’, which is precluded by Bigness (referring to spatial Bigness, egg the dislocation of the façade from the core, within Koolhaas discussion). For what he describes as ‘honesty’, one could also apply authenticity.

In translating this general theory of Bigness later in the book, encased in a discussion about Singapore, Koolhaas

[�0] p. ��� S,M,L,XL, Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau, Jennifer Sigler (ed.) 010 publishers, Rotterdam, 199�. - an interesting nod to Francis Fukuyama’s ‘The End of History and The Last Man’

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quotes Fumihiko Maki, who recognises the inherent but thus far misinterpreted structuralism[�1] behind the urban context. This is to say that it is organised in interdependent (but not to the point of necessity) pyramidal structures. This is ‘Collective Form’, existing on three tiers of decreasing physical size. ‘Megastructure’, ‘Group Form’ and then ‘Compositional Form’. He looks to the futility of trying to manipulate cities at either extreme of the syntax. Megastructure is simply too complex and integrally massive to be designed, whilst Compositional Form is too tiny in its scale to affect the Megastructure, it remains internalised. At the level of Group Form, ‘the elements create extremely well differentiated communal formal and functional factors, which are then developed in connectors. The elements do not depend on the framework; instead they establish a group in which an organic interdependence exists between them and the framework….’[22]

Maki extends the realisation of a comparative order to denounce the relatively simplistic and disconnected generators until now relied upon by architects, ‘Le Corbusier limits generative human qualities in urban architecture to ‘air,’ ‘green’ and ‘sun’ while exponents of ‘Group Form’ find a myriad of suggestive activities to add to that list.’[��]

Koolhaas reading of Maki suggests his discovery of a new context in which to construct and inform a ‘big’ architecture, leaving behind the traditional generators, bogged down in the restrictions of the static marginal authenticity. The systemic qualities of urbanism dominated by hyperreality, and its function, commerce and the divorce of the aesthetic from functionality[��] are recognized not as anathema to architecture, but the breeding ground for a new architecture.

[�1]Baudrillards System of Objects is also, obviously, a structuralist analysis, but one which takes a far more concrete form than, say, the abstract and at times self referential structuralism of Derrida.[��]Koolhaas quotes, Fumihiko Maki, ‘The theory Of Group Form’ Japan Architect, feb 19�0 pp.�9-�0 on page 10�� in S,M,L,XL.[��]Koolhaas quotes Maki, ‘Investigations in Collective Form’ (St. Louis, Washington University School Of Architecture, 19��) pp? on p10�1 of S,M,L,XL. ....see over for [��]

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So we see that Koolhaas is able to make a cool, theoretical argument for the necessity to build big if one is to create an architecture which exists within complex and non-static systems of value and cities, but this does not cover the necessity for the architecture to acquire value, as a non-marginal, non- hyperreal object. Because Koolhaas proposes bigness and ergo complex subsystems within the city, what he doesn’t ever really present us with, is a building. There is still a denial of creating a truly different kind of architecture from this position. The change of scale suggested by Koolhaas certainly allows the step away from marginality which he sought. Almost universally, he has made his buildings unphotographable from the point of view of the pioneer photographers engaged by the Mission Heliographique in the mid 1800’s. Taking the example of Villa Dall’Ava, in Paris. He has made a building which defies the notion of the exact replication by photography. It is at once long and short, exotic and ordinary, polished concrete and crinkly tin. There is no one photo which defines it (not an uncommon condition, but what to which Koolhaas consistently aspires). Koolhaas has created the kind of building which a first year architecture student might get a severe telling off for. Ostensibly, there is no resolution of the building form, it is conceived merely as a collection of individually successful compositions. One might criticise this however, as these are not a genuine compilation of found, or received components, with genuinely pre-established values, and indeed, what Koolhaas can never escape, is that his buildings never quite escape that resolution, they somehow come together.

This becomes more of a problem when you apply this conceptual bigness applied on a small scale, to an actual bigness. Moving to the example of his Grand Palais in Lille, again it can quite easily be photographed as a series of smaller segments in collection. The question is begged, what is

from previous page...[��] Look back to Baudrillards false liberation of the object and the inability of a technical analysis to properly describe the world around us.

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the role of the architect of such a building. There is a falsity of process if one presents an architecture which is ostensibly about collection of objects, to then knowingly design each of these objects seems to dilute the relevance of such an approach. Koolhaas seems to want to translate the methods of urbanism, i.e. working at the level of the systemic, to buildings. Maybe what he needs to do is involve other architects at the micro level, parcelling off chunks of building to several other designers, or, more relevantly, copying exactly from other designers existing work, and reassembling it Koolhaas, although he has begun to break down the rigidity of marginality, has not then managed to integrate fully with the concepts of hyperreality.

What he has begun to understand, on top of the physicality of his architecture though, is the need to mediate it in a controlled fashion,; in order to ensure that it is open for consumption and taxonomy. What he can’t seem to let go of, however, is the need to be an architect, that final, unnecessary polish which stops us being truly good graphic designers.

We can see this in the way Koolhaas has gone about his ‘big book’. S,M,L,XL, is very much a hyperreal architecture, combining built, unbuilt essay and student work within one volume and labelling it architecture. It is not structured temporarily, but is reconstructed along two linear lines, of theoretical development and project size. Note also that Bruce Mau is credited equally with Rem Koolhaas as author of the volume. Bruce Mau is an internationally renowned graphic designer, with a practice in Toronto. You can find him on the web at www.brucemaudesign.com. He has this to say about his practice;

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‘Since its inception in Toronto in 1985, Bruce Mau Design has gained international recognition for cross-disciplinary work. The studio provides expertise and innovation across a wide range of projects: identity and branding, research and conceptual programming, print design and production, environmental graphics, exhibition design and product development. BMD collaborates with some of the world’s leading architects, artists, writers, curators, academics, entrepreneurs, businesses and institutions. Recent projects include: a design and branding strategy with Canadian retail giant Roots; Tree City, a project to transform Downsview Park in Toronto; STRESS, a multi-media installation about the limits of the human body; and Puente de Vida, the development of a museum of biodiversity in Panama City.’[25] Bruce Mau, then, is not an architect, but he is considered by Koolhaas an equal in representing his architecture in such a way that it be legible in the context which he describes within. An internet magazine, ‘portfolios.com’ published an interview with Mau,

‘But the question remains: How did an artist with roots in traditional, two-dimensional design (publications, annual reports, etc.) find himself involved in the creation of projects of amazing three-dimensional depth and incredible international complexity?’

“What happened,” he explains, “is that I started doing typographic projects with architects including a big communications project -- the book that became “S, M, L, XL” -- with Rem Koolhaus. Koolhaus asked me to look at his project (which was about culture and his work) and to give it shape. Then Frank Gehry invited me to help him think through a project he was working on. And so on ...” [26]

[��] http://www.brucemaudesign.com/profile/profile.html[��] http://www.portfolios.com/close-ups/bruce.mau/ the typo’s are theirs, not mine!

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Koolhaas, then, has started the process of realising an architecture on the margins of hyperreality, and taking control of its necessary mediation, but with drawbacks. His natural conclusion appears to be to withdraw himself from the ‘design’ process, and become a planner and assembler. His reluctance to do this leaves him with an ultimately unsatisfactory product, neither firmly placed in the mainstream, marginality, or even directly in the space between.

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2. TWO METRE ARCHITECTURE//depth and complexity in the early work of Herzog de Meuron

“Rampantly spreading simulation architecture is no longer projected on the world by an author, but instead simulates, reproduces, manipulates and consumes existing imagery. Instead of passively letting ourselves be sucked into the maelstrom of this simulation architecture which not only absorbs all the imagery, but also any and all innovation in order to survive, we can actively employ simulation as a possible strategy in our own architecture, a kind of subversive reversal, as in biotechnology.”[��] - �001

‘I believe that in our civilisation there is a tendency to reduce the dimensions of space to the images of space, that is, to two dimensions, as a consequence of the development of the technical image which has taken the place of the magical image………We can do nothing to halt the process, and, indeed, it would be stupid to do so…….’

‘It is, nonetheless, absolutely indispensable that we develop new strategies; strategies which contradict the legibility of the everyday; which raise questions rather than satisfy superfluous needs in the way that commerce, television and contemporary architecture do.’

‘I believe that or architecture is full of images, that it evades images, that it contradicts images; be that as it may, it is what we have been looking for in our work ever since we started: a wealth and complexity of images…..’ [28] - 1989

[��] p. 1�, ‘Acceptance Speech, �001 Pritzker Prize, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron’, El Croquis #109/110, Herzog and de Meuron, 1998 – �00�, Richard Levene and Fernando Cecilia, ed.[�8] Interview with Jacques Herzog, in ‘Herzog de Meuron’ by Jose Luis Mateo, published by Gustavo Gili

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The work of Herzog and de Meuron, has always been embroiled primarily in the creation of images. It is because of this, that the architectural press and critics have always had rouble pinning down exactly what the work is. Should it be respected, valued and but forward as ‘good’ architecture, or should it be dismissed as nothing more than fad or fashion.

Jeffrey Kipnis wrote an essay entitled ‘The Cunning of Cosmetics’, about Herzog and de Meuron. It begins with a two hundred word demolition of the work of the practice, followed by this candid admission,

‘The question more to the point, then, is when exactly did my infatuation with H&dM’s work begin? When did I start returning to publications to gape secretly, furtively at the Goetz Gallery, the Signal Box, Ricola Europe, or the sublime Greek Orthodox Church, like a schoolboy ogling soft porn?’[29]

Similarly, Rafael Moneo, one of their most fervent admirers, in the same recent El Croquis remarked,

‘In all these designs, those which show their professional ability, the architects field of action has been limited to the control of facades, the definition of the building skin; their materials seem to serve only that, and to lose that condition of substantiality that let us see their first works with such admiration.’[30]

Indeed he is right. H&dM have put the majority of their efforts over the twenty something years the practice has been at work, into intensive development of the substance of the façade, working restrictedly in the � metre deep skin of the building. It’s not that their interiors are bad. They are very mechanically, rigidly and functionally

[�9] p.�� ‘The Cunning of Cosmetics’, Jeffrey Kipnis, El Croquis #8�, Herzog & de Meuron, 9�-9�, Richard Levene and Fernando Cecilia, ed.[�0] P.�9, ‘Enigmas of Surface and Depth’ , William J.R. Curtis, quoting Rafael Moneo, ‘In Celebration of Matter’, Herzog and De Meuron AV Monograph, ��, 1999 p ��, El Croquis #109/110, Herzog and de Meuron, 1998 – �00�, Richard Levene and Fernando Cecilia, ed.

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planned, and always decked out very beautifully and very minimally. Their penchant, usually, is for lots of timber and a chaste palette of paint. It’s just that all the fun, is in the façade. The strange thing is that people seem to see this as such a negative thing. In the context of the wider discussion of this essay, it seems inevitable that any one who wishes to design a product, and make it successful, must make it photographable. What is difficult for an architect is to address, as we have already discussed, the problem of combining the static-ness of architecture the marginal object with the fluidity of the image, fashion and the hyperreal. Herein lies the problem for the critic. How can one afford categorization, value, to a product which is equally at home in Wallpaper as it is in the Architectural Review? Indeed, a product which allows the face of Jacques Herzog to be consumed on a par with the architectural image. Herzog, you will notice, always refers to the practice in the third person. It is an object whose representation is, as with all objects, fluid and dependant entirely on the way in which it is placed, mediated, consumed.

People often confuse their architecture with minimalism, the ‘Swiss box’. I think that this stems from the way in which H&dM divorce themselves from formalism, in order to, firstly, avoid the obsession with conveying meaning through architecture, and in the second place, to allow this marginalisation which is necessary for the worth of the architectural object to be established. Because of the relatively uncomplex forms of their architecture, and a focus on the photographability of the skin of the building, the whole essence of their buildings can be captured very much in the documentary style of the ‘Mission Heliographiques’. The style is architecture, the substance is fashion. It’s easy to agree with Herzog, for me, when he says,

‘Why is fashion such a bad thing? We think it is arrogant

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to think in such categories… these are practices that shape our sensibilities, they are expressions of our times. We are interested in that aspect of artificial simulation which becomes such an intimate part of people.’[31]

Despite having facades composed of intricate layering and over layering of images, actual and implied, and appropriated and reconfigured materials, their buildings are always substantial, strong and static. There is an attempt here to combine the staticity of the marginal and the fluidity of the hyperreal. Herzog commented in the same interview,

‘No- one has truly accomplished that in contemporary architecture. Architecture which looks familiar, which does not urge you to look at it, which is quite normal, but at the same time it has quite another dimension. A dimension of the new, of something unexpected, something questioning, even disturbing.’

And I don’t think his own practice have manage quite that yet, but you can see this fascination in their work. That familiarity which the rigid squareness and formality of their early work was characterised by, allows the onlooker to accept its ‘architecturality’, whilst the ability for it to be mediated and photographed spectacularly, and in ways not readily apparent in the flesh, allow its acceptance into the world of the image. Some of their buildings in fact can only really be appreciated when the time and space condensing nature of the photograph is utilised. For example, the Technical School at Eberswalde is a simple box, covered in printed images.

[�1]p�, El Croquis #8�, Herzog & de Meuron, 9�-9�, Richard Levene and Fernando Cecilia, ed.

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_façade studies for the Eberswalde Technical Library.

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It is made up of floor height bands of alternating glass and concrete. In the daylight, the printing combined with the opacity of the glass allow the box to appear to be all one material. At night, the inside lights shine through the glass, dissecting the box into segments. For the onlooker, this is an entirely static presentation, in each of the two states. The observer, however, cannot see the whole cycle of the building, this still requires the temporal compression which can be achieved by the publication of photography. One might say that their manipulations of material are all geared first to enriching the photograph, and then to staticising that image to create a successful but ultimately secondary physicality.

None of the materials used to achieve this effect are actually new, they are recycled, compiled, mediated and reassembled, as Herzog said, ‘simulation as a possible strategy’. The cleverness of their work has been to find innovative, often highly technical methods for the combination of existing ‘things’. Here for example, is their use of a brand new imaging printing process for concrete. There is also a certain honesty in the origins of the things which are collected. For the images which run across the surfaces of the library, they did not ‘design’, a la Koolhaas, but they approached an artist, Thomas Ruff, in order to layer on to the building another thing, rather than simply to design a separate component of their own making. Their continuing relationship with Ruff, and with other artists such as Remy Zaugg allow them to incorporate a certain ‘found’ level into their use of images, as well as their use of materials.

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_day and night in Eberswalde.

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Eberswalde represents a very physically flat example of their layering process. Just like they use the accepted formalisms of their buildings to lend marginality to the hyperreal layer in their work, it is the introduction of the �metre architecture which reinforces this, when the �d image becomes a product of a �d manipulation. Like the student who tells the critics his scheme is about ‘urban regeneration’ when it’s really about making a stash of money, H&dM use the architecturally ‘worthy’ notions of depth and space as methods of constructing the actual reality, the hyperreal, which resides only in � dimensions. Very cynical, but maybe also pretty clever.

One of the first examples of this was the Suva building in Basle.

The scheme for this building consists, of an added curtain wall of glass to the exterior of the building, with automated opening lights comprising its entirety, they were able to introduce two new layers of image which were available to the photographer, adding up to three in total. The first is that of the original building, visible through the glass. The second is the image of the new edifice as seen from afar, a glass box. The relative darkness of the building behind the glass makes it invisible to the camera, a view not always afforded to the pedestrian, and moreover there is the reflection of the other buildings around, always carefully realised by their photographer.

The third image requires a change of scale. Zooming in on the façade reveals the detail, the aesthetic of the new construction itself, which is unavoidably layered upon the now visible existing façade. These three layers and their interrelations are constantly altered by the opening and closing of the opening panels of the glazing. The building becomes infinitely re-presentable, but guided directly by

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_the Suva Building - Basle.

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those three layers. A very deep composite image of the building is formed when one tries to reconcile the layers through photography.

This is a very basic use of the facility of glass to offer a wide variety of different images, based on the surrounding light, what is placed upon it, and what is placed before and after it. However, this is still a little too designed. The compilation of images here is static to a certain extent, and so there is not the interplay which we seek between the static and the fluid in order to exist at once in the real and the hyperreal. Always in this building, there is the dominance of one thing over another, and not that unnerving quality which H&dM seek.

This leads them to start to incorporate the notion of chance into their facades. Who is more unpredictable than that anathema to the architect, the occupant. And this is exactly what is introduced to that � metre architecture by Herzog and de Meuron. They started to develop a series of variations on the theme of inhabited and movable facades, whose exact configuration at any one time is influenced by the manipulation of louvres, screens, blinds and shutters by their inhabitants. Take Casa Koechlin, the Apartments at Schutmatstrasse and Rue des Suisse, the Commercial Residential scheme at Herrnstrasse, St. Jakobs Park football stadium at Basel and the Funf Hoffe business passages in Munich. All of these schemes feature moving and reconfigurable facades, none more deep than � metres and all accompanied in the publications by their now customary façade section detail, as though they were taunting us with their ignorance of the physical depth of the building. Despite these efforts though, I still get the impression that they have not really reconciled staticness with fluidity. The photograph of the ‘two wings of glass’ building is an irony. The photograph makes static what is actually fluid in real time at the

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building. The angled glass on the façade brings together a set of physically separate images by their reflections, into the one composition, and freezes them there, whilst as a visitor, as you walk towards the building, that image is constantly changing. That the photographer is present in this photograph is very fitting. It seems that whatever tactic they pursue, they can never be successful on all fronts. They achieve successfully staticised fluidity or vice versa. They can place fluidity into the domain of the static, or vice versa, but they can never, it seems, properly resolve the two, which seems to be the ultimate goal for them. This is even whilst they are denying the whole issue of the programme and of complex form and working purely within their two metres.

Their latest schemes start to escape the rigour of the box and develop more complex forms. The actual substance of their architecture though, is becoming more and more bound up in the actual 1:1 considerations of the substance of the façade. In the latest El Croquis, their buildings are presented on an equal footing with test panels for the new Prada façade, at a building scale still, but then at a completely different physical scale, with a four page spread consisting solely of very small samples of perforated copper sheet, sand pixel patterns which make up the proposed skin for the New De Young Museum they will be building in Golden Gate Park. The way they present these images brings them up to the same scale as the building, giving it the same recognition.

It’s not for me to comment on how successful or unsuccessful their move into a new complexity of form as bearer for their skins will be for their quest for the unnerving (un)familiarities they seek. If there is something that I like in their architecture so far though, it is the healthy cynicism with which they approach the production of

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architecture. In an early interview, describing a former project for the diagonal in Barcelona,

‘The reason why I have described this project lies in a desire to show how we try to work, to illustrate that according to our way of thinking architecture will have to open itself up to the changing conditions of our present-day civilisation, it will have to be responsive to that still ‘invisible’ world [of ‘unglamorous’ functions], we might say, in order to find and develop its visible form as architecture; this is the extinction of the architecture of styles, it is the end of the architects preference for materials and forms.’[32]

They talk about an architecture which derives its success on a basis of whim and ephemera, but until they actually combine this with a meaningful impact on actual space and form, and experience, I don’t feel they will actually achieve their goal,

‘The strength of our buildings is the immediate and visceral impact they have on a visitor. For us, that is all that is important in architecture’.[33]

I can agree with that, but contrast these two excerpts from interviews, firstly a response from the interviewer from a monograph simply titled ‘Herzog de Meuron’ by Jose Luis Mateo, published in 1989, and then from a 199� interview in El Croquis.

‘ I would also indicate here the reduction of architecture to the evocative and illusory world of images. ’

‘It has been said that your work accelerates the degree to which architecture has become fashion.’[34]

[��]Interview with Jacques Herzog, in ‘Herzog de Meuron’ by Jose Luis Mateo, published by Gustavo Gili[��]p.18 ‘A Conversation with Jacques Herzog’, Jeffrey Kipnis, El Croquis #8�, Herzog & de Meuron, 9�-9�, Richard Levene and Fernando Cecilia, ed.[��]p.18 ‘A Conversation with Jacques Herzog’, Jeffrey Kipnis, El Croquis #8�, Herzog & de Meuron, 9�-9�, Richard Levene and Fernando Cecilia, ed.

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H&dM need to make these questions irrelevant, either by producing what is indisputably an architecture, or by integrating the transient, the fashionable into their work and architecture in general so far that such statements no longer have the ring of accusation. At this point, they will truly have achieved an integration of the fluid and the static, the marginal and the mainstream, the real and the hyperreal. They need to prove that there is actually still a place for architecture in hyperreality, just as there may be a place for hyperreality in architecture, without the nihilism of Koolhaas.

When Jeffrey Kipnis started his interview with Jacques Herzog in 199� with the loaded question, ‘I love your jacket: do you follow fashion?’, Herzog must have sighed. I think you could still start an interview with him this way, and I think that it might still elicit a sigh. Maybe herein lies the problem.

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A BRIEF SUMMARY

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_A BRIEF SUMMARY

In this essay, we have discussed the climate in which architectures are currently being produced. More importantly, it is a discussion about how we ascribe a value to architecture. The traditional means of consuming, cataloguing, ordering and categorising architecture is proving increasingly outdated. It is becoming unable to account for architectures which do not exist within the strict boundaries and classifications which it demands. The tendency to address architecture as a marginal object in the Baudrillardian sense demands standard and consistent approaches not only to the form and appearance of buildings, but also to the reproduction of buildings, their mediation and framing. We know that these restrictions do not actually apply to the architectures we are now producing. Architecture is consumed ever more in the mass media, in the hyperreal. In this way, it is possible for values to be ascribed to it which are out of the control of the profession itself. This may sound fairly obvious at first, but it is actually a very new condition, for a very old profession. It seems to me, that a series of polar opposites begin to present themselves.

There is first the popular versus the elite. If architecture is now offered to the masses, it no longer is the domain purely of the professional to decide upon its value.

Secondly, in the world of pure theory, there is the marginal versus the mainstream. The professional is used to dealing with architecture the marginal object, whose frames of reference are fixed and understood, he knows how to produce

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an architecture which will be ascribed the mark of quality by his peers. The mainstream relies on a much less fixed set of values, and ones with which architects are unused to manipulating. Graphic designers photographers and fashion designers are much more adept at this, and so architects are turning to them for help.

Thirdly, there is a very physical dichotomy at play here, the static vs. the fluid. Architecture is fixed, heavy, dense, unsuited to the need to change rapidly and reinvent in order to maintain its value in a fluid value apportioning system. Similarly, so is the architect fixed, bound up by method and not by product, which is the true currency. So many architects ‘legitimise’ their transient products with false post rationalised method in order to please their peers. Even Jacques Herzog, the greatest fan of product not method states,

‘The good thing about fashion is you can give it away if you don’t like it any more, or when you think you need to change your public face. Architecture cannot do that.’

One has to ask, why not?

Leading us to the fourth and final set of poles, the real and the hyperreal. Koolhaas thinks architecture is dead, that it cannot exist within this complex and fluid set of relations and maintain a physicality akin to what we call architecture now. Herzog and de Meuron believe they can continue producing traditional architectures, and simply add a layer which is image friendly, hyperreal. We are now firmly embedded in an age where the physicality of architecture is becoming increasingly irrelevant, with the award of the RIBA Gold Medal to Archigram, and I’m sure there are bigger budget awards than the AJ Small Projects which could be won without an actual building. I prefer not

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to look upon this with the nihilism of Koolhaas. I think there is a fertile ground on the edge of hyperreality for a proper solution, an integration whereby the hyperreal has a fundamental effect on the way we produce and experience the real, not just the way in which we consume it. We might start to find this place by starting to try to resolve some of the dichotomies I have presented above, and after that maybe we can get to the bottom of understanding how the consumption of architecture affects its production.

Personally, I’m going to have my name featured in the Architect’s Journal next week. Start of a long road to non-existence I guess.

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EPILOGUE

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_EPILOGUEAt Static Gallery on Roscoe Lane, I recorded a discussion led by a group of artists on the role of the ‘New Contem-poraries’ competition. Some of the discussion started to describe the level to which the artists felt able to con-trol their careers, in a consumer society. Some of these out takes describe a group who feel peripheral to their own careers. On the edge of hyperreality.

__ ← many thanks to paul and becky at static gallery, and to ‘teflon’ for their input into the recording of the event.

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out – take #1 →

Jo, Artist. I was just thinking about Ben saying that before, he went into New Contemporaries, having ideas about how he wanted to push his career, but I think a lot of people, and I don’t know how many of you [the audi-ence] are students but I think, I worked a lot with an-other artist called Helen Bendon, at a similar kind of time actually, and I don’t think we’d considered the New Contemporaries and what comes from that if you’re taken up or what ever. So what we done was made a body of work and… I always think of it as making it in innocence in a way, so we weren’t being strategic or thinking about what might come of that, but I think that what we wanted to do was to put it into the world after it had been made. But I think we knew that it was good work, and we wanted to find oportunities whereby it was going to get some kind of critical attention and I think what, we felt about New Contemporaries was that it was read as something that you might get your….it’s like a focus of attention, so it is very much an opportunity. I think it’s something you can look at, I think it’s a doorway into a bigger party, but what I feel that party is, is probably the art mar-ket, which is about the consumption of art, as a commod-ity. But we haven’t gone like, that’s our model for mak-ing work at that time and very quickly we were taken up and [we] used the opportunities that came to us. It was like, a reaction. It was a kind of domino effect that led us to getting into a gallery in paris, which is one of the top ten galleries, so we were working very quickly but responding to what…..that….what kind of context we were in. So it wasn’t like we were in, working in art-ist run spaces, or dealing with other models, we were in the commercial art market, and I think one of the things I think about being in the new contemporaries that it is that door into, what I feel is more of a commercial art market, which is very much about products, and produc-ing products. It’s interesting to go in there. I think that Ben had some idea, when he was in the New Contempo-raries, about what he wanted to get out of it, which I think’s very very healthy, but it’s worth doing research

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about what markets exist, before you even begin to, kind of, put into these shows, and be quite focused about the things you’re going to put into them. It’s just a great opportunity, it’s a lovely thing to do, you’re around people that, you know, it does create…opportunity, defi-nitely, and like Ben was saying, it’s what you do with that really and how you …pick that up, and drive your career in whatever way you want to. For us we actually helped that…I think things came at us quite quickly after that, so there was, kind of, chance opportunities. It’s amazing how, I think it was Sadie Coles who saw our work, some where, and she then saw it at new contemporaries and she’s gone to London, stuck our work up, of mine and Testina happened to buy some prints, and it’s kind of out of your hands at that point, it’s like watching your work disappear, it isn’t anything to do with you at that time. I think what you have to do is…choose what you do, and what you don’t want to do, because things can come at you so quickly. So it’s really interesting, cos it creates opportunity but, it’s very specific, types of opportunity that might come from it, and it’s knowing what those are, and what you want to do with them. I found that an in-teresting aspect of it, personally.

Bev, New Contemporaries Administrator. No I think that’s a really interesting point because it’s like, when you’re involved on the selection of, well I kind of observe the selection, it’s really fascinating in terms of looking at the work when you kind of know that it’s work that people haven’t really thought about it being seen. It’s just been made. The energy about making the piece and then it’s about what happens to that when it gets to a plat-form like New Contemporaries, it can get completely over-taken, the speed at which things come at you, it’s quite, can be quite frightening. But, I mean there’s a real dis-tinction between the stuff that’s just been made and that view about it being seen and distributed you know?

Jo. Well it’s what the work becomes really after it’s left you and the making of it, I think. And also you have things where…when things are coming at you it is the product, they want the product so, you’re experience,

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it’s not about your experience ofmaking work and what you do as a creative person, which is completely separate to what happens to that work once it leaves you and enters the market place. Now if you want to control that, you have to think about for a whole time you had this, infi-nite time and now theres demands for the work but there’s also demands for certain types of the work because you’re there, because it means money so you have to be quite hardfaced about it and…I think have a healthy disrespect for it, and go in, and learn to say no, say no, I need time to make work or, you have to make shifts in your practice. Now if you’re at a very early stage in your career those things can affect, you can be overwhelmed by it. We were old enough to kind of go, ‘No, we don’t want to do this, yes, we will do that.’ But it was overwhelm-ing to a degree I know a man, somebody and, once we’d been asked to be in a show, because the video piece we did was putting eggs down tights or whatever and somebody wanted a very similar piece for their show, and it’ kind of, a really interesting pressure to have peopole say, do that again, because you can lose confidence in developing your work. What might look like that might not resemble it, you have to stick with how you want to develop as an artist, and as an individual, and really stick to that. Rather than to get too lost in what the market will de-mand of you because you do become a commodity. If you’re in that context.

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out – take #� →

Dave, (the author). The problem I have with the way this discussion’s going is this idea that, ok, I have a prob-lem with this mainstream, I don’t like it, therefore I step outside it. I mean, to carry on the party analogy ad nauseam, you know, eventually you’ll get to the ste-reo, and you can put what you want on. When the gentle-man at the end mentioned the idea of Bloomberg as a spon-sor and some of the effects on the curation of the event, I thik there is value, personally, in taking those things and being in control of them and saying well, ‘yes it is sponsored, it does have an identity’ and these things which have been given to it by Bloomberg or BT or whoev-er, Charles Saatchi, and that was a great thing that was said earlier about the art world chewing up and spitting out Charles Saatchi because that, to me, is some kind of taking control. You, know saying this guy is a sponsor with his own reputation and his own connotations, and we can use that to create a critical environment, to create a thing, to make work.

Jo. But artists can’t do that, artists are on the lowest rung of the ladder.

Dave. But this is just why I get slighltly annoyed by this, ‘we must get out of this mainstream’ because I think that then they will forever be the bottom of the ladder, if they keep rejecting the possibilty, or the ne-cessity to take control of that system.

Jo. I don’t think I’m promoting the idea that you get out of it, I think that you can be in it for long enough to, you know, you have to negotiate your way through it That’s what I’m saying so, very often when you come out of college, if you are a young student who hasn’t neces-sarily got a clear methodology, perhaps if you don’t know how you want to exist as an artist, it can be very con-fusing, but it’s positive, it’s something to respond to.

Dave. I’m not an art student, I’m an architecture stu-

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dent, and something that’s become apparent to me today, that I’d not really put a lot of thought into before, is that I can really see how this isolation comes about, stepping out of the framework of art school, and into the framework, of, you know, writing your own brief, set-ting your own agenda, I can see that, and that’s why the lady from SPLICE was talking about the necessity to cre-ate a support network for artists in the city, but there already is a network, which is the commercial framework, if, of course, you can get through the door of the party, you know, which is why I am quite concerned about the no-tion of rejecting it. Constantly, or the proper way is, like you say, getting involved

Jo. But where it falls down is where you say, maybe I don’t want to work in that particular way and being able to do that and being validated within that.

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out – take #� →

Gary, artist and former selector. Mike Nelson, I thought, will come through various selectors, we found your work, in some way, interesting, worth sort of lingering on. So how do you separate your work from all the other �,000, 10,000 others that came before and after?

Mike, artist. I think you just also want to put it down to, professional practice as well, I think the slides which I sent in the second time were a great deal better than what they were the first time and with that slight bit of education and tutelage you can kind of angle some-thing in the right direction towards getting into the new contemporaries.

Bev. So you think it was the slides and not the work. (the audience and critics shouting up obscure the tape at this point.)

Mike. You’ve got to attract the attention, you know, for the brief second, these people have got see thousands of work. If you put in slides which aren’t interesting, people won’t linger on them.

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APPENDIX

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_‘TOO MUCH ART MAKES ME THINK’ ...paul lenahan, unemployed, liverpool.

As part of the �00� Liverpool Biennial of contemporary art, myself and a group of fellow students were asked to create an artwork. We were engaged because we are archi-tecture students. The purpose of the Biennial, as it was pitched to us, was to widen the brief of art in the city, to make it more inclusive for the wider public. To this end, many of the exhibits and installations were situated outside at various sites around the city, and as such, had taken an architectural slant. In a certain way, this was architecture created by artists, and so the Biennial organisers had come to us to ask architects to produce art, much against the advice of Professor Dunster, the Roscoe Head of Architecture at Liverpool University, who had advised them to, under no circumstances engage any architects at any stage of proceedings, if they wanted to produce anything at all. This was to prove to be a po-etic irony.

Having taken the [lack of] brief towards the end of the exhibition, we decided to take the Biennial itself as our subject. To this end, we interviewed Sharon Paulger, our guide and liaison with the Biennial organisers, a little more about the intentions of the festival. She was very keen to emphasize this inclusiveness of the Biennial to the wider community. This is understandable, as Sharon is the education officer for the event and had organised many projects for the exhibition which had been com-pleted by community groups and schools. This was a valid way of reaching the community we thought, but what about those who were neither coerced into getting involved, as school children often are, or those that had made an ef-fort to get involved based on a prior interest in the

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subject matter? Did the Biennial actually reach any of the ‘real’ public, who normally only use the city centre for shopping, rather than to pursue an active interest in ‘culture’ the commodity.

We had a look at how the event was received in the press, to see if and how it had registered after all, ‘media coverage and ‘public opinion [are](often treated as in-terchangeable)’ . The art press and the broadsheets seemed genuinely interested . The biennial literature itself seemed keen to pick up on this, particularly the interest generated in the London art scene, but where was the biennial in the popular press, that tabloids, even the local media?

There were two exhibits from the biennial which attracted the attention of the local media to any significant de-gree. The first was Tatsuro Bashi’s ‘Villa Victoria’. This was an installation which surrounded the statue of Queen Victoria outside the law courts.

The interest was based on the ‘defacement’ of a monument, and the inordinate amount of money spent on the instal-lation based on the other priorities in the city . The other, was the exhibition partially entitled ‘God is a Cunt’ . Unsurprisingly the press focused on the blasphe-mous content of an exhibition which included a comments book entitled ‘God is a Cunt, discuss’ (one of which was actually stolen) and bright red polystyrene Jesus which was hung upside down. The event was partially created by the infamously amoral Tracey Emin and set in a disused church, St. Peters on Seel St. We will discuss later exactly why these two installations were the most noticed amongst the many pieces on show.

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Suffice it to say that we, for our part, now became in-terested in the closed circle of the art community. Why is it that modern art seems incapable of escaping its own domain? These people, artists, are image makers. In an age which is dominated by the syntax of the image, why can they not seduce the wider public? I think part of the answer to this is revealed by the quote from Kim How-ells, the current Culture Minister, for whom this year’s Turner Prize submissions are, ‘cold, mechanical, concep-tual bullshit.’ It seems that art in the modern era has moved out of the frame of reference of the public. It is not necessarily a physical dislocation of the pieces that is at fault , as is the somewhat naïve assumption of the Liverpool Biennial. Instead, it is an intellectual and social dislocation that is apparent. The public at large is unable to participate in the modern art debate because it does not understand the language that it speaks.

When Jean Baudrillard discusses ‘hyperreality’, and the System of Objects , he proposes a syntax by which the value of goods and objects can be understood, in terms of price, but also in terms of intellectual value by virtue of comparison. The solidity of the syntax which he pro-poses means that the worth (or possibly meaning) of an object can be consistently be discerned, by comparison with other objects. This is despite that the value of this worth (meaning) might change. The public understands this syntax, but needs to understand the words which constitute its lexicon. In the same way as Old English cannot be understood today, but is a direct and indisput-able relation to Modern English, so the lexicon of modern art is illegible to those who have not been party to the process which has transformed it from the purely depic-tive language with which they are familiar .

Herein lies the reason for the interest of the local

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media. These two pieces took images that are well es-tablished in the lexicon of the of the public. One of these is fairly universally understood (the image of god through iconography), and one of them more locally rel-evant (the statue of Queen Victoria, a very visible monu-ment on a busy traffic junction in the city). Because the public is able to enter into this discussion, because it is framed in terms of their own language, it is able to respond. The problem, however, is that I don’t feel that either of the two installations are fully in control of these forays into intelligibility.

Bashi’s Villa Victoria is intended to be an investiga-tion into scale with reference to notions of familiar-ity. Bashi has made a career by placing items incongru-ent in scale, in juxtposition, usually using the domestic to intensify ‘small scaleness’, and the public to inten-sify ‘large scaleness’. Therefore, obviously, he creates a strong disjunction when placing a 1�’ high monument to a monarch, in a bedroom. He necessarily utilises the public lexicon and the ‘cultural system of signs’ , ie prejudices and preordained meaning which that brings with it. Because of this, he found in Liverpool that the pub-lic responded more to the subversion of the established words of their lexicon (i.e. the established symbol which is the statue), rather than the discussion which was set up between the two symbols, which requires symbols from outside of their lexicon to be discussed. We, for our project turned to the comments books to give us clues, and we found that a great number of the comments revolved around the way the exhibition had made them ‘re-notice’ the presence of the monument, or, as in a good many ex-amples, what a disgrace it was to surround such a well loved monument with a scaffolding structure. As I have already mentioned, the cost of the display was another hot topic for discussion, both in the comments book and the

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Liverpool Echo, but the discussion which I believe the artist had hoped to engender was ignored. In this sense, although Bashi has found a method by which to engage the public, he is not fully in control of the process.

In a similar sense, the exhibition at St. Peters on Seel St., I believe, had deliberately set out to cause contro-versy. There can be no proper debate over the role of a organised religion in modernity, within the context of an exhibition entitled ‘God is a Cunt’. Shock is a time honoured method by which to engage the public, and almost universally to the detriment of any real debate. This again shows a very thin level of control over the con-tent of art. Neither can the work of art prove its value (monetarily or in terms of relevance), or convey any sort of meaning in this context.

Despite the haphazard way in which the notion of shock engages with public opinion, the Biennial still embraces this apparent breakthrough in communication. One of the Biennials own publications quotes a Daily Mirror article from the first and only previous Biennial, which express outrage at a particular exhibit,

‘Birds set alight in art stunt’

, is the headline, written by Brian Roberts, on the �nd of October, ’99. Roberts was describing a performance by Mexican artist Fernando Palma. This is the only newspa-per cutting they have chosen to reproduce in this pam-phlet, which does not appear under the bold print subhead-ing ‘ART’. Even at this, the format suggests in wasn’t exactly a front page story. Control over the method in which the message is conveyed, and in which the public is engaged seems absent.

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It is at this point that it becomes relevant to introduce architecture into the debate. Architects too practice an art that is increasingly beyond the scope of public con-ception, or at least so many of them would have you be-lieve. Similarly, the architect is enclined to couch his work in terms which do not fit into the lexicon, which the public can negotiate. A case in point is the ‘Fourth Grace’ proposal for Liverpool’s waterfront. The exhibi-tion held at the Walker Gallery to show the short listed proposals allowed for a public vote on the schemes shown, with 18.�% . Will Alsop’s ‘Hamburger’ (nee Cloud, before it’s renaming by the press) came in third in the public vote. Liverpool’s ‘Daily Post’ ran the following head-line,

‘WHATEVER HAPPENED TO PUBLIC OPINION?…This is the build-ing which came last in a vote by the people of Liverpool. But regeneration bosses have still decided it will be our Fourth Grace’ . ←_the daily post, saturday december �th �00�The public had made their vote on the basis of the com-mon currency of their value apportioning syntax, the im-age, akin, as I discussed earlier to the Baudrillardian model, or ‘frame’. Alsop’s images did not convey any of the codes which people associate with the architecture of their large public buildings. The accompanying article in the Post included a vox pop, in which was reported the following opinion from Phil Keating, a �� year old print-er from local Netherton,

‘Liverpool is improving…but we need to keep making the right steps. All the other buildings are in keeping with each other but this looks like a hamburger.’

No one could claim that any of the other schemes are a direct extension of the style of the neighbouring Port

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of Liverpool Building, but what they are an extension of, is the current evolution of the public lexicon which describes public buildings. Alsop is, however, an experi-enced manipulator of the public. He has already arranged for a public ‘forum’ for �00� to gauge public opinion of his blueprint. However, as his vitriolic acceptance speech for the Stirling Prize in �000 showed, he has not yet succeeded in entering the lexicon of local planners particularly in Kensington and Chelsea or Camden. Nei-ther this architect, nor the artists aforementioned seem to be experienced producers in this context, or at least failing to recognise the necessary preconditions of en-gaging the public successfully.

So we sought to create an intervention which, if it might not have addressed this context, it would at least dem-onstrate an understanding of it. The basic premise was to highlight the unavoidable exclusivity, set up by these irreconcilable languages, of the art world. We decid-ed to create a single exhibit which was not original in itself, but made up of fragments of, and references to, other parts of the biennial. This exhibit would be shown for one evening only, therefore there would be a tension set up between the importance of the artwork, against the importance of the exclusive event. We tried to put as much emphasis on the publicisation of the event, as on the creation of the artwork. ← _a web flyer for the event

Our final piece was then to be a video recording of the space between our intervention, and the bar which faced it, and more importantly the people who occupied that space, which would be displayed after the Biennial had finished, as a retrospective.

We readily admitted that we would be quite cynical about

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who we marketed the event towards. We used only elec-tronic and traditional mailing lists from the Liverpool Biennial office and from Static Gallery , plus flyers which were placed at existing Biennial sites, such as Villa Victoria, and in shops who had previously displayed flyers for other Biennial projects. The actual content of our exhibition was to be almost incidental, it’s func-tion was to create the spectacle of the opening night, which we saw as a direct metaphor / manifestation of the exclusivity we wished to highlight.

The event, as it actually transpired, was more eloquent of the situation we were observing than we ever could have imagined. When the exhibition opened at �pm on the ��nd of November, all we had managed to construct of the physical intervention was the structure, with none of the cladding we had intended. The projections and scripts we had prepared were ready to a rudimentary level, and so (in light of the fact that we had no real choice) we went ahead with the event anyway. To our surprise and immense relief, the show was a success. ←_the installations

We were told afterwards by Sharon that it was the most attended opening event that she had witnessed during the whole Biennial, but not only that, it was also in her opinion the longest lasting opening event. What we had done was to have engrained our event firmly into the syntax of the art world. In the same way as the general public is accustomed to receiving its public buildings through a given set of codes and media, and its religion through a set of pre-ordained images, and it’s monuments uncluttered by scaffolding, so is the art world accus-tomed to visiting empty churches with unintelligible piles wood, so long as it is ‘framed’ correctly with the same flyers and at the same internet address. Baudril-

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lard suggests that a modern designer should be able,‘…beyond the utility they [objects] have for him, to project onto them his game plan, his calculations, his discourse, and invest these manoeuvres themselves with a sense of a message to others, and a message to oneself.’

We had arranged our, ‘components of a code,’ in such a way that we could do this to such a level of authenticity that the visitors to the exhibition were able to accept the exhibition as it was presented to them. They brought with them the pre-established syntax of their trade, which allowed them to fill in the gaps in the sentence with which they were presented for themselves. We pro-duced art without any art, ‘hyper-art’.If there is a lesson to be learnt, then, from the ‘Tef-lon’ project, as we dubbed it , then it is that mean-ing is conveyed only through a thorough understanding and manipulation of the medium in which that meaning is presented. In some cases, the words can be absent, and the meaning can still carry through. In most cases, the words are plentiful, but the meaning is lost. I am re-minded here of a quote from the architectural film maker, Patrick Keiller,

‘Most film space is off screen – it’s either remembered from preceding images….or merely the imaginary exten-sion of the space on screen. Because it is reconstructed in this way, film space is always a fiction, even if the film is a documentary.’

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This extended essay was written by David Lomax in partial fulfillment of the Bachelor of Architecture course at the University of Liverpool in �00� - �00�.

The essay was written with the help and tutelage of Torsten Schmiedeknecht.

It earned the University of Liverpool nomination for the RIBA President’s Dissertation Medal that year.

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‘Adventures’ is an extended essay investigating key themes in the philosophy of cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard relating to architecture ‘the marginal object’. The essay attempts to identify and propose strategies for generating and consuming architecture in an image savvy society by way of Baudrillard’s System of Objects and study of the early work of some of today’s most prominent architects

This essay was written by David Lomax in partial fulfillment of the Bachelor of Architecture course at the University of Liverpool in �00� - �00�.

It was written with the help and tutelage of Torsten Schmiedeknecht, earning the University of Liverpool nomination for the RIBA President’s Dissertation Medal that year.