Multiplicity in architecture?Jelle van der Neut

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IntroductionThe concept of multiplicity, ‘the one and the many’, or rather the many as one, has been an issue of philosophies and theories for quite some time now. The term has been used in larger theories of organizing the world for most of that time. We have seen art practices use this concept as a tool by which artists such as writers, painters, cinema directors and so on compose their work in a fascinating way. In architecture this occurs as well, however in less amounts. The essay is built up as a multiplicity of key words of influence on this subject. She is explanatory, critical, conceptual, arbitral, subjec-tive and incomplete. It was never a goal to give a full perspective of all that is in the realm of multiplicity. The goal is to investigate the possibilities for this concept in architectural practice. She is not a basic set of rules to be obedient to at all times, she is a highly personal and selective to the author and can, will and must be transformed, added, and disrupted whenever necessary. She is temporal, piece-by-piece. She can be a tool for a very specific architecture, not only aware of the theories, also aware of the practices. The subjects are related and connected to each other, it can be read as a whole in any possible order, as well as just partly. Although the intro and conclusion seem to be clearly definable as beginning and end, they also are part of the research and should be read as part of the network.

ConnectionsMultiplicities are all about making connections in every sense of the word. In fact, Deleuze states that ‘the line of flight’ and only lines of flight constitute multiplicities.1 The line of flight is a concept of Deleuze & Guattari in their larger concept of the rhi-zome. The line of flight is the element establishing all connections and relations in mul-tiplicities. It represents movement in any thinkable way, and lines of flight are abstract lines, as well as actors in the movement of Deterritorialisation and reterritorialization. In architecture, connections have always been important. Being aware of the complex local system, intern and extern, physical, visual, and sensorial can bring certain quali-ties to a project. Specific projects are only about connecting; are these the projects destined to be interpreted as multiplicities? Architecture might not only be about con-cepts and materials,2 but when speaking of connecting buildings, other aspects can be filtered, or abstracted. This would be controversial in Deleuze’s and Bergson’s terms, since the rhizomatic system in which the line of flight and multiplicities is integrated is to discard from all abstractions so general in the arborescent system. But since archi-tecture is dealing with existing situations, there is no need to keep to the rhizomatic system, as long as the multiplicity is not harmed doing so.

1 Deleuze & Guattari; A thousand plateaus;UMP; 1987; p 112 Grosz, E & Eisenman, P; Architecture from the outside, MITP, 2001; p. 113

BifurcationA qualitative change in surfaces or planes caused by a quantitative change in the amount of possible entryways, lines of flight. It is di-rectly influencing the complexity of a system. In nature bifurcations describe transitions form equlibrium towards a new equlibrium, one that is more complex, less symetric.

Plane of consistency “The plane of consistency (grid) is the outside of all multiplicities.”3

It can be seen as one of the basic rules for the rhizomatic system, a net wherein all connec-tions take place, lines of flight as part of mul-tiplicities, as part of the rhizome. This plane is not organized in a hierarchical way. Rather, every actor, connected to a lot of other actors of different kinds, are in the same nonhierarchical order. The grid in architecture is often seen as a dull, perpendicular system to organize a project. But the grid can also take other forms, such as an infrastructural regime with different speeds, altitudes, directions, movements and so on. To deal with multiplicities in architecture the plane of consistency is highly important, connecting to other multiplicities is only possible when a good conection is esthablished with this grid.

3 Deleuze & Guatarri ; A thousand plateaus; UMP; 1987; p 9

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Focus

“That which properly belongs to the mind (in the argument on numeric conception) is the ‘indivisible process by which it has the capacity to concentrate attention on differ-ent parts of a given space.’’ 4

Focalisation should be seen as a ground condition for all transformations. In the per-ception of a single object, focus is highly important, change of focal point is decisive for the establishment of new relations. Attractors being noticed by focalisation can lead to Deterritorialisation and reterritorialization of multiplicities. We have seen this concept as main subject in Lars van Trier’s ‘The five obstructions’ where a series of different transformations in the same fabula is distracting focus from this story of ‘The perfect human’, giving the fabula five different perspective. (See as-signment 2 & 3)

Single SubstanceThe Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza denies the dualistic division between mind and body, God and nature. He thinks that God and nature are two words for the same real-ity. God is not placed above all things, God is in all things and He has no personality.

“Gilles Deleuze qualified Spinoza as the “prince of philosophers” for his theory of immanence, which Spinoza resumed by “Deus sive Natura” (“God or Nature”). Such a theory considers that there is no transcendent principle or external cause to the world, and that the process of life production is contained in life itself.”5

This solution to dualism seemed to appeal to Deleuze; it has influenced hem and Guat-tari in their plane of immanence.

Plane of immanence Deleuze employs the concept of immanence as opposed to transcendence. With this he denies dualism and idealism.

“It is only when immanence is no longer immanence to anything other than itself that we can speak of a plane of immanence.”6

4 Bergson, H; ‘Time and free will’; p. 84; In: Hauptmann, D; ‘Like already measured threat rewound onto as spool: a(n)notation on Bergson’s two forms of multiplicity; In: Healy, P * Bruyns, G, ‘De-/signing the urban: Techno-genesis and the urban im-age’, 010 Publishers, 2000, p. 1625 5Antonio Negri, The Savage Anomaly: The Power of Spinoza’s Metaphysics and Politics;transl. 1991, UMP6 Deleuze, G; Immanence: A life3

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“Rather on the plane of immanence there are only complex networks of forces, particles, connections, relations, affects and becomings: “There are only relations of movement and rest, speed and slowness between unformed elements, or at least between elements that are relatively unformed, molecules, and particles of all kinds. There are only haecceities, affects, subjectless individuations that constitute collec-tive assemblages. […] We call this plane, which knows only longitudes and latitudes, speeds and haecceities, the plane of consistency or compo-sition (as opposed to a plan(e) of organization or development.”7

This plane is the basis for all multiplicities and rhizomes. It makes the whole theory feasible, not only as a philosophical theory, bur also for practices. For literature for example, Deleuze and Guattari have clear visions:

“The ideal for a book would be to lay every-thing on a plane of exteriority of this kind, on a single page, the same sheet: lived events, historical determinations, concepts, individu-als, groups, social formations. Kleist invented a writing of this type, a broke chain of affects and variable speeds, with accelerations and transformations, always in a relation with the outside. Open rings. His texts, therefore, are opposed in every way to the classical or ro-mantic book constituted by the interiority of a substance or subject.”8

7 Deleuze & Guatarri ; A thousand plateaus; UMP; 1987; p 2668 Ibid.; p. 9

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Deterritorialisation

“How could movements of Deterritorialisation and processes of reterritorialisation not be relative, always connected, caught up in one another? The orchid deterritorializes by forming an image, a tracing of a wasp, but the wasp reterritorializes that image. The wasp is nevertheless deterritorialized, becoming a piece in the orchid’s reproduc-tive apparatus. But it reterritorializes the orchid by transporting its pollen. Wasp and orchid, as heterogeneous elements, form a rhizome.”9

Deleuze’s example of the orchid and the wasp explains de- and reterritorialisation quite well. The orchid makes a connection with the wasp by luring it with an image. This enables the orchid to reproduce. Is this also possible in culture, or between culture and nature? This has to do with merging two environments. It is artificial deterritorialisa-tion, but it appears of interest. Merging a building with its surroundings for example extends the building and at the same time the surrounding is extended into the building, and makes both boundaries unclear and brings the two closer together.

TransformationsFor Deleuze, all that exists is substracted from one single substance by an ever differn-tiating process of modifications of this substance. These modifications are crucial to the heterogeneity of the rhizome. This ontology is summed up by Deleuze in the mathema-thical formula ‘plurism = monism’. The way in which these modifications are done are several:

“It can be torn, reversed, adapted to any kind of mounting, reworked by an individual, group, or social formation.”10

For architecture, modifications or transformations of a pure substance can be interest-ing. And when we take this very literal, leaving much freedom for the public and less for the architect. Series of transformations of a singularity are being used in archi-tecture already. FOA’s Cruise Terminal in Yokohama is an exaple of this. The project knows a direction wherein the section is transforming in a series of something like one hundred nonidentical sections. To the beholder, this building is a flux over a line with a start and en end. Its function delivers a lot of different movements, the building represents that. The clear beginning and end may not represent other characteristics of multiplicity, nevertheless, a multiplicity of sections has potential architectural quality. (see also addition 2)

9 Ibid.; p. 1010 Ibid.; p. 13

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“...Transformation ought to be seen as a type of movement, the flow of matter through time; and it is time, and only time, that makes the new both possible and necessary.”11

This necessity of novelty extorted by time should be read critically in relation to the concept of multiplicity that this essay is refer-ring to, since a lot of this writing is inspired by Deleuzian concepts, who has used Bergson’s ideas on time and space, and durée.

1 Sections of the Yokohama Cruise Terminal. source: FOA,

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2 Yokohama Cruise Terminal, source: flickr.com

11 Sanford Kwinter; Architecture of time; MITP; 2001; p. 7

Duration (Durée)Duration is the subjective concept concept of the perception of space-time, another of Henri Bergson’s concepts. For him, the conventional way of seeing things in a succes-sion of cause and effect is an abstraction of our consciousness. Tracking a movement on a system of infinite reference points (grid) would not refer to the movement as it should be. An image of a moving object, taken with a slow shutter speed, the move-ment seems to be accentuated, where tho object itself is being abstracted into some-thing vague. Movement cannot be divided into series of parts.

“… the mistake, he consistently argues, is in thinking that succession places the ele-ments in time, as opposed to space.”12

Bergson means that movement is not to be simply divided into a single variable such as time.

“Duration, by contrast, is a multiplicty of succession, heterogeneity, differences in kind and qualitative differentiations. It is continuous and virtual. Duration is divisable of course, but is transformed by the act of division”13

This virtual concept is hard to grasp in reality. The distiction between time and space considering movement, however is relevant. Movement is change, transformation, but also connecting. In architectural design practice, speed and movement are getting more and more important. This implies different movements, speeds, and thus different perceptions of time and space. An specific architectural project can be distinguished by taking this as primary notion.

Image

“For Henri Bergson, matter is an aggregate of “images,” by which he means “a certain existence that is more that that which the idealist calls a representation, but less than that which the realist calls a thing -- an existence placed halfway between the “thing” and the “representation.” (Matter and Memory, preface, p.9) Bergson seeks to consider matter before that disassociation which idealism and realism have brought between the existence of matter and its appearance. He appeals to a pre-philosoph-ical “common sense” that believes that matter exists just as it is perceived -- as an image.”14

12 Bergson, H; ‘Matter and memory”; New York Zone Books; 1988; p. 71; in: Healy, P & Bruyns, G, ‘De-/signing the urban: Techno-genesis and the urban image’, 010 Publishers, 2000, p. 15713 Grosz, E & Eisenman, P; Architecture from the outside, MITP, 2001; p. 11414 Christian Hubert Hypertext; www.christianhubert.com

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This concept of matter as an image does not directly relate to that of multiplicity. However is does relate to the perception of space in time, or duration. It is important to realize that for Deleuze in ‘Cinema 1’ film is not to be sim-plified as 24 images in a certain interval; the images are sections of a flow of movements and events. Speed is of influence to this too. This is also true for music, as Deleuze and Guattari explain in the example of Glenn Gould. Accel-erations and decelerations can transform point into lines, movement. 15

Can speed and movement also change archi-tecture towards a sense of duration and time-space? For certain assignments this can be done, for example where different velocities come together. The static image of a building changes in different speeds, and adding accel-erations and decelerations enforces this image more.

RhizomeOne of the most well known concepts of Deleuze & Guattari is that of the rhizome. It is opposed to the ever-accepted arborescent system in Western society especially. Impor-tant aspects of the rhizomatic system are the heterogeneity, connectivity and non-hierarchy. In ‘A thousand plateaus’ Deleuze and Guattari describe six characteristics of the rhizome:

“1 and 2. Principles of connection and hetero-geneity: any point of a rhizome can be con-nected to anything other, and must be. This is very different from the tree or root, which plots a point, fixes an order.

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3 Enric Miralles Olympic Archery Range, Barcelona

15 Deleuze & Guattari, A thousand plateaus, UMP, 1987; p. 8

3. Principle of multiplicity: it is only when the multiple is effectively treated as a substantive, “multiplicity,” that it ceases to have any relation to the One as subject or object, natural or spiritual reality, image and world.4. Principle of asignfying rupture: against the over signifying breaks separating structures or cutting across a single structure. A rhizome may be broken, shattered at a given spot, but it will start up again on one of its old lines, or on new lines.5 and 6. Principle of cartography and decalcomania: a rhizome is not amenable to any structural or generative model. It is a stranger to any idea of genetic axis or deep structure.The rhizome is altogether different, a MAP AND NOT A TRACING. Make a map, not a tracing.”16

The principle of multiplicity is essential in all this. “Multiplicities are rhizomatic”17, and rhizomes multiple. Connections between multiplicities form a rhizome. These con-nections are crucial in the rhizome, just as the fact that the rhizome is always changing by qualitative and quantitative transformations. In Italo Calvino’s ‘Five memos for the next millennium’ Calvino speaks of Proust as a writer who writes in multiplicities.

“Proust’s work grew denser and denser. The net is composed of points in space-time occupied in succession by everyone, which brings an infinite multiplication of the di-mensions of space and time.”18

The multiplicity of multiplicities seems to be aiming for a rhizome, as well as the endlessness of the stories Calvino describes. Calvino seems to be well aware of the theories of Bergson and Deleuze when he writes about literature works written in an encyclopaedic way. Deleuze however, denies the rhizome as being encyclopaedic, since the rhizome is not describing the world, it is in the world and makes connections between all sorts of multiplicities.19 He sees in Kleist a good example:

“Kleist invented a writing of this type, a broken chain of affects and variable speeds, with accelerations and transformations, always in a relation with the outside. Open rings.They (Kleist’s books, red.) are designated by indefinite articles, or rather by par-ticles (some couchgrass, some of a rhizome….).”20

16 Ibid.; p. 717 Ibid.; p. 818 Italo Calvino; Six memos for the next millennium; HUP; 1988; p. 11019 Deleuze & Guattari, A thousand plateaus, UMP, 1987; p. 1120 Ibid.; p. 9

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The difference between Kleist and Proust seems to be that Proust is trying describe the whole Rhizome, while Kleist does so of some of it, one or some multiplicities, it is part of one or more rhizomes.The lesson to be learned here may be that in an architectural project making connections with-out hierarchy, to let it become that ‘some couch grass’ in the bigger system. Letting it become the rhizome would be impossible since the out-side cannot just be forgotten. On an architectur-al and practical level, the plane of consistency might be of even greater importance to this than in the theory.Rationally speaking, this whole concept should be discarted when we realize that in building practice there always is a hyriarchical order. Should we therefore declare multiplicity in architecture impossible? There are many ways to represent the multiple in architecture. The Spanish architect Miralles, for example, imple-ments the natural ground condition very well, and at the same time he makes use of elements, transformed in a series. This is differentiating the physical space, as well as fitting it into the rhizome.

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MultiplicityThe term multiplicity has more than one interpretation. Henri Bergson distinguishes discrete and continuous, where the discrete is differentiating in a qualitative and divid-able way and the continuous quantitative and in dividable, referring to his concept of duration. 21

Italo Calvino has a more practical approach to the issue, while referring to literature in specific in his ‘Six memo’s for the next millennium’ he sees multiplicity as

“The contemporary novel as an encyclopaedia, as a method of knowledge, and above all as a network of connections between the events, the people and the things of the world”22

The latter part of this quotation is strengthened when he discusses Gadda as a good example. Connections seem to be of great importance to the noun multiplicity.

“...Being tangled in a system of infinite relationships between everything and every-thing else....”23

Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari deny the encyclopaedic image of multiplicities in general, since the encyclopaedia describes all the world’s things, while for D & G the rhizome, constructed of multiplicities, is in the world. To be able to work with the theories of Bergson, Deleuze and so forth we need to takes their side in this. And so, some characteristics need to be defined.

- “Multiplicity must not designate the many and the one, but rather an organisation belonging to the many as such, which has no need whatsoever of unity in order to form a system.” 24

This would mean that a multiplicity is undividable and continuous, according to Berg-son’s two kinds of multiplicities. These quantitative multiplicities are in pure duration. Constant change in space-time is essential.

- “Multiplicities are defined by the outside: by the abstract line, the line of flight or Deterritorialisation according to which they change in nature and connect with other multiplicities.”25

21 Bergson; ‘Time and free will’; p. 121; in: Healy, P & Bruyns, G, ‘De-/signing the urban: Techno-genesis and the urban image’, 010 Publishers, 2000, p. 16022 Italo Calvino; Six memos for the next millennium; HUP; 1988; p. 11223 Ibid. 24 Gilles Deleuze, ‘Difference and Repetition’ p 23025 Deleuze & Guattari, A thousand plateaus, UMP, 1987; p. 1111

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To be more concrete, connections and deter-ritorialisations form multiplicities. These are formed and deformed constantly and so dif-ferentiates constantly. Transformations in form, size, capacities and properties are always hap-pening. For architecture, this mobile heterogeneity is quite difficult to achieve. Computer added ac-tive architecture changing in shape by outside influences are known, as well as user adaptable architecture where users can adapt the build-ing by their needs. But this is mostly known as flexibility and does not make new connections. Architecture is static, users are not. Focus can also claim that the other way around. The out-side can define architecture, contextual aspects can be the main driving force for a design, and so can this characteristic be interpret into architecture.

- “Multiplicities cannot be counted or measured.”26

Deborah Hauptmann has a striking oneliner to this, “One in intuition but multiple in space”27

The ever-changing characteristics of the mul-tiplicity and the fact that neither beginning nor end is clear results in the uncountability of the multiplicity. Where does the one stop and where does another start is vague. - “All multiplicities are flat, in the sense that they fill or occupy all of their dimensions: we will therefore speak of a plane of consistency of multiplicities, even though the dimensions of this “plane” increase with the number of con-nections that are made on it.”28

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26 Manuel DeLanda, A New Philosophy of Society, 2006, p. 1127 Hauptmann, D; ‘Like already measured threat rewound onto as spool: a(n)nota-tion on Bergsons two forms of multiplicity; In: Healy, P * Bruyns, G, ‘De-/signing the urban: Techno-genesis and the urban image’, 010 Publishers, 2000, p. 16128 Deleuze & Guattari, A thousand plateaus, UMP, 1987; p. 8

A multiplicity should use all its possible relations to others, and in doing so no pos-sibilities are left opened. For an architectural project this would mean that everything on which the project could get hold on should be used. Making all possible connections to other multiplicities should not only be interpreted physical, but also psychological. Doing so would be a great effort for the architect. It might even be impossible, since its boundaries are vague and in practice there are always other influences beside the abstract conceptual ones.

Conclusion

“Philosophy is not, for Deleuze, a mode of mastering the real, framing its rules, under-standing its principle…”29

There certainly are possibilities for architecture to use multiplicity as a design tool. The fragmented text above shows these possibilities and its problematic issues. Some of the characteristics will need to be ignored in order to deal with it on an architectural level, other need to be interpreted in a rather banal way. Interpretation, perception and mime-sis are highly subjective and can therefore hardly be called academic. Trying to do so brought up some positive ideas to bring multiplicity in specific design assignments, but doing it by all the rules would be impossible. This does not make this research a failure; I would see it more as incomplete. Making it complete would mean integrating all aspects of influence to the theme, where here is only some writing on multiplicity. But then again, completion is never achieved, and incompleteness leads to abstraction, the thing that Deleuze was opposing to to begin with.

After wordThis essay is the result of a theoretical course of a Dutch School of Design master class at the Delft University of Technology. Various readings and assignments were involved to the weekly meetings. In addition to this, the design studio that I was involved in influenced me in my interest in multiplicities, transformations, series, and so on. The ultimate goal was to be able to combine the two projects in order to be influencing each other in some positive way, resulting in a more interesting and academic design, as well as a to practice related theoretical study.

29 Grosz, E & Eisenman, P; Architecture from the outside, MITP, 2001; p. 113

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Quite soon, however, it became clear that the design critic was not interested in my plans, and so both projects had to be done separately, which was frustrating me a lot. Nevertheless, my interest in multiplicities was still there, and this indeed has influenced the design, although it may not have been aware to the critic in-volved. Looking backward, the architectural design certainly has elements of multiplicity, such as Deterritorialisation between the infra-structural regime and the nature on site. Various connections are made, physical, visual, and sensorial. In that sense the two projects have clear relations. While composing this text I realized that the unconscious is more powerful than I thought. But it might have been better, considering the fact that it came all out of the unconscious, without any critical notes from the design critic.The assignments for this course were all very much related to the subject, so the choice for one was not very hard. Constructing the essay was quite difficult. Relating theory to practice in the chosen way of dealing with fragments has the danger of being superficial and to realize the right level of depth was hard. Therefore it is suggestive, and certainly never finished. Own experience an insight from design course, analysis of other architectural works are highly subjective. Nev-ertheless, I think I have found some things to work with in specific projects.

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Bibliography

Bergson, H; ‘Matter and Memory’; Dover Publications; 2004Calvino, I; ‘Six memos for the next millennium’, Vintage; 1996DeLanda, M; ‘A New Philosophy of Society’; Continuum; 2006Deleuze & Guattari; ‘Capitalism and schizophrenia, a thousand plateaus’; Continuum; 2004Deleuze, G.; ‘Cinema 1’; Continuum; 2005Deleuze G.; ‘Difference & repetition’; CUP; 1994Grosz, E & Eisenman, P; Architecture from the outside, MITP, 2001Healy, P & Bruyns, G, ‘De-/signing the urban: Techno-genesis and the urban image’, 010 Publishers, 2000Kwinter, S; ‘Architecture of time’; MIT Press; 2002Negri, A, The Savage Anomaly: The Power of Spinoza’s Metaphysics and Politics (transl. 1991, UMP)Spinoza, B; ‘Ethics of Spinoza’; Citadel Press; 1995

Online sourcesTheory section Christian Hubert Studio: www.christianhubertstudio.comPlatform for philosophical dialogue www.capitalismandschizophrenia.org

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