the city is not a postcard -perezgomez

7/29/2019 The City is Not a Postcard -PerezGomez

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42 arkitektur n. 04 . 2007 ark

Acentral question or an ethical contemporary architecture is how architecture and urbanorm may acknowledge the specic cultural particularities that we associate with theidentity o a place. This question, however, is very dicult to unpack in my view, it is inhe-

rently ambiguous. Contrary to what many architects and critical theorists may think, contex-tualism is not an obvious operation, particularly when what is at stake is a poetic practice.

Artistic products rom the most diverse cultures touch us by virtue o their paradoxical uni-

versality; they both belong to a time and place and transcend it, contributing to our sel-under-

standing regardless o our own particular culture.

The diculties surrounding this question are a direct result o a typically modern cultu-

ral dilemma, namely the challenge o imagining and building a meaningul human order

in a world that almost regardless o geographical location remains in the grip o Cartesian

The City is not a Post-Card:The Problem o Genius Loci

dualism. This is the world that made the global village possible, in which concepts o reality

and delusions o progress are ueled by the apparent successes o technology in controlling

and dominating the environment. In this predominantly scientistic world, the great majorityo building refects little else but the enshrined, supposedly objective and hedonistic values o

economy and eciency, or instantiate like signposts monetary and political power.

an environment is not an image

In order to design and build a poetic world, one that may enable humans to participate in

a sense o meaning without reducing buildings to literal signs, both grounded in a culture

and also transcending it, we must question certain deep-rooted assumptions. First o all,

architecture is not the mere manipulation o orm or space, it is neither an art nor a science

in a reduced sense o those terms. Understanding our proession this way we will never grasp

what belongs on a site, or what is appropriate as a programmatic vision. The ultimate rela-

tivity o value is insurmountable i architecture is reduced to a question o aesthetics (in the

eighteenth-century sense), or ornament (in the nineteenth-century sense). Positions or and

against the importance and precedence o a given cultural milieu are equally allacious i one

understands such a milieu as a picture, or as a materialistic, dead, and objectied collection o

physical eatures or buildings. Such a context can never be the origin or the generation o

meaningul architectural ideas and built work.

The desire to relate recent urban architecture either to landscape, to one specic historical

tradition, or both, as a reaction to the banality o technological modernism, is a noble objec-tive. Context as an objectied, picture-like lieless orm in the sense sketched above, however,

is ar rom being a synonym o either nature or cultural heritage and cannot be a point o

departure to ensure a more rooted architecture.

the significance of narrative

To grasp the signicance o both our given natural world and our histories as the ground or

a distinct architecture, we must understand these phenomena as interwoven, only graspable

through narratives leading to our sel-understanding as modern architects. This is indeed the

only sure oundation that may allow the architect to articulate a project as political position,

ollowing an understanding o what may be appropriate, here and now. The key to this

problem is the issue o language. Language, contrary to what architects generally believe, is

crucial or a poetic and ethical practice. Language is the substance o the imagination, and the

crucial oundation or constructi ng the commonplace. Language is the basis ophronesis or

prudence, the practical philosophy o Aristotle, the ground o culture that is also the ground

o truly relevant human truths, including the good and the beautiul. Modern architects have

a tendency to bypass language, dreaming that the imagination, creation and the project can

occupy some universal realm that allows or ubiquity. In this way, we may eel we are perectly

capable o being in New York and designing a school or Uganda, or seemingly all that mat-ters is an international language o orms, made possible by universal technological means.

Stories, however, are crucial or an ethical praxis. History and context are never simply given

like unchanging objects; we have to make them at every moment. We weave them in the

present through our own desire, in an exchange with the culture in which we expect to build.

Only when emerging rom the deeply rooted language o a particular culture can an appro-

priate position be ormulated, resulting in a program and eventually, an appropriate architec-

tural project. Because history is authentic knowledge (and not scientistic pseudo-knowledge

albertoprez-gmez |

The issue of Genius Loci was a problem dear

to Christian Norberg Schulz, and the term

has become central to the theory and practice

of architecture and planning in Norway. Inthis article, professor Alberto Prez-Gmez

engages phenomenology and the use of lan-

guage as a means to further the conversation

on this important topic.

This lecture was delivered at the Sverre Fehn

Symposium at Hamar in May 2006.Facing page: Oaxaca, Mexico. Churchphoto:bob krist/corbis


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or inormation), it demands that we take a position. History is our ull inheritance, both the

constitution o the mental ramework that has its roots in the Western tradition (or the con-

temporary technological world is constituted out o that tradition), and the local architectural

artiacts that are real cultural symbols because we have made them, and that can be gleaned as

an order allowing or our present orientation. We should seek basic strategies or poetic inha-

bitation in the artiacts, history and ctions that constitute its background. This is o course ar

rom being a call or a simple return to the vernacular.

the work never exists outside of its context

In order to underscore my point, let me tease out another related alse assumption concerning

context. Real common sense experience (as opposed to our omnipresent logical patterns o

thought) shows that the perception o invariant colors or dimensions in the empirical world

is bound to specic cultures through language. The Innuit in the polar desert perceive many

colors where we see only white. Yet the perception o invariance, however it may occur, is a

secondary phenomenon, while the fow o experience itsel is primary. Pure red or pure whiteare never empirical acts in our perceptual experience, and a vertical dimension is always

perceived as larger than the horizontal dimension o the same quantitative extension. We will

invariably overestimate the horizontal distance a alling tower may reach, because vertical

distance is, in the rst instance, larger than horizontal distance. What we perceive as primary

is always elastic time and distance, depending, or instance, on whether we go home rom the

oce riding a bicycle or in a ast car, and depending on whether we are hungry or bored. The

mileage reading in the car odometer is, in this sense, a secondary abstraction.

I we think o St. Peters Basilica in Rome, we may choose to objectiy it as art historians

oten do, and state that its proportions are actually awkward and squat, except that Berninis

square makes it look right. Such intellectualizing objectications o architecture constitute a

dangerous allacy. Notice that the objectied, context-less building is taken as the real build-

ing, allowing the critic to utter such scathing judgment. St. Peters Basilica is what it is in its

existing site. The work never exists outside or apart rom its context, even though we may

wish to consider it as an autonomous geometrical object in the Cartesian space o our mind.

Furthermore, the context that contributes so much to its identity is never purely the objectied

site either. Thus we must conclude that context is, indeed, crucial or architectural meaning,

yet must be understood in its more encompassing sense as situation or ground, or even as the

world o the work. It also ollows that the issue o the generation o appropriate architectu-ral ideas in an urban site or region o the modern world is a complex problem that depends

on the proper working o the imagination, reconciling what is given with what is possible, in

order to open up the possibility o poetic dwelling. It is thereore a problem o metaphoricity,

it necessitates rhetorical and political thinking and not instrumental or stylistic deduction.

Only an architect with a broad cultural understanding and roots in the humanities is liable to

succeed in this task. As we know well, these are conditions that unortunately do not respond

to the pedagogical priorities o contemporary architecture schools and proessional corpora-

tions.

the world is an intentional phenomenon

The modern world has a specic reality that is not independent rom our thoughts. The world

itsel is an intentional phenomenon, and our world demands that our actions not become

curtailed by a reactionary enslavement within prevailing traditions when these become empty

o content. Martin Heidegger who helped establish the phenomenological awareness at the

root o my previous remarks about the importance o the site as place writes as well: The

fight into tradition, out o a combination o humility and prescription, can bring about not-

hing in itsel other than sel-deception and blindness in relation to the historical moment.

Architectural historians have contributed to a delusion when they alsely try to explain thedevelopment o architecture as progressive organic change. The great architecture that we now

perceive as our tradition is in act the work o enlightened individuals whose highly personal

and imaginative syntheses were never contextual in the modern, narrow sense o the word.

These works were at the leading edge o culture at the time they were created. They t into

the culture and the natural environment not because they were underdesigned or ormally

coherent but rather because their identity that which they represented, and that allowed

their builders and inhabitants a deep sense o recognition was the result o the individual

architects broad and deep cultural roots in his/her own space/tim e. This is at the heart o

architectural meaning: the participatory role o architecture which, in its maniold historical

embodiments, has allowed the individual inhabitant at dierent times in history and in all

cultures, to belong to an institutional totality and understand lie as a coincidence o opposites,

as a given sense (meaning) in the poetic incandescence that shows lie (plurality) and death

(unity) not as polar opposites (order and chaos) but as potentially one.

the recovery of place is a critical project

I have oten written that our traditional sense o place or locus has been disrupted by our

belie in technological, isotropic, geometric space as the real ambit o our worldly actions.

Our age supports an almost blind aith in applied science, one that has become increasingly

international and transcultural, ueled by ever more ecient systems o communication and

inormation, blurring traditional boundaries and, with them, the qualities o specic places

that may still be present in everyday modern lie. This is a reality that must be acknowled-

ged by architects and urban designers. The recovery o place is a critical project. It is not

enough to look out at the world or region transormed into a picture, that beautiul sunset in

the mountains o Oaxaca: cultural values and relations to place must be sought in architec-

ture through a personal search, a work o the ethical imagination and not one o pastiche orstatistics. To expect that one can isolate regional or cultural characteristics and refect them in

architecture though a conscious, externalized operation is nave. Equally utile is the desire

to recreate nostalgic urban public space: A parallelogram with our little trees does not make

aplaza, and Postmodern simulations are not the modern equivalent o the locus where tra-

ditional architecture ullled its intersubjective, cultural promise to become a cosmic space,

oering through experiential wonder a ground and orientation to our nite lives. This kind o

contextualism, regionalism or even revivalism has clearly ailed to produce truly meaningul

architecture, even when it rivals the surrogate orms o cultural participation represented by

the media, cyberspace or television.

What are then our alternatives? From the historical trajectory o moder nity we have also in-

herited a very real capacity or reaction and personal reconciliation. The history o this alterna-

tive poetic epistemology started with the inception o the Romantic Movement and continued

in the 20th century, mainly through surrealism and phenomenology. Making architecture

with a desire to acknowledge local identity we must recognize the priority o embodiment and

our connections to the natural world, and yet neither the world nor the body are simply given

unmediated, as permanent and unchanging essence. Meditating upon an articial lake created

by planners in the middle o Dallas, Ivan Illich demonstrates how dicult it is or H2O, a

modern fuid whose unction since the late-eighteenth century has been to circulate, to ap-pear as water under those conditions, as the mythical liquid that not only makes lie possible,

but allows or remembering and orgetting. In arid regions where water is scarce, or example,

this observation is crucial. While it is crucial to conserve H2O and to procure the amounts

needed or practical purposes, it is even more undamental to remember that its symbolic

value can only be recovered throug h imaginative work, displacement and metaphor. While

waste must be avoided, the problem will not be solved by shutting down a ew ountains, and

lie will be made worse i a potential or true poetry is eliminated.

Casa Mila, Barcelona. Antoni Gaud.photo:lehtikuva/kimmotaskinen/imap

Tuberculosis sanatorium, Paimio. Alvphoto:iha

La Tourette, LEveux-sur-LArbresle. Lephoto:iha


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The world and the body image nally ceased to be classical in the early nineteenth century.

Thus an architecture o concrete, qualitative places, is not resolved through a simple-minded

extrapolation rom historical or autochthonous, vernacular buildings. The theory o unc-

tionalism obviously ailed, becoming prey to it own reductionist obsessions, and yet almost

regardless o what architects themselves may have said or written about their work, true

modern architecture has been produced and is not identical to technological building. Some

modern architecture has immense symbolic power, and it is all diverse and heterogeneous,

rom Gauds Casa Mila to Aaltos Paimio Sanatorium or Villa Mairea, rom Miess Barcelona

Pavilion to Le Corbusiers La Tourette or Ronchamp. Regardless o its style, or o its more or

less gural or abstract quality, such architecture allows or cultural recognition; it allows or

ourdreams, it represents ourvalues in a mode ultimately irreducible to paraphrase. Contrary

to common assumptions, this architecture is prooundly meaningul precisely because it

does not have a meaning, like the logo o a company or a alse idol, and rather opposes all

strong dogmatic and ideological reductions. Perhaps we should emphasize this urther: Luis

Barragans architectu re does not represent Mexico as a nation-state. T he same could be said

or Aaalto and Finland, or Le Corbusier and France. T his coupling is one o the most proble-

matic misunderstandings o regionalism. Ultimately nation-states are modern abrications,

product o states o exception and police power. True architecture always overwhelms its sim-ple unction as a sign and plays with power, this is why it is crucial or humanitys survival.

place cannot be disclosed, it has to be reinvented

We expect to be at home in our cities, to share a sense o existential, and not merely physical,

security. Yet our collective home must accept a dimension o utopia, one that accompanies

the true values o modernity: the possibility o real historical evolution and our sel-assertion

as individuals, leaving behind the repugnant prejudices o the past and transcending both

totalitarianism and anarchy. We must thereore embrace the positive aspects o utopia, while

remaining open to the gits o our cultural region, particularly as made maniest in artiacts

o many kinds, literary and artistic. It is my contention that within this tradition o poetic

artiacts in dierent media we may nd appropriate strategies, to be internalized and tested by

the architect. Abstract architectural ideas evidently pose a danger o being easy to assimilate to

the aims o technological domination. The power o the modern architect as a maker, however,

should not be denied. The great works o modern architecture, even though they are in the

world and belong to culture, like gestures or ood, are comparatively ree rom the traditional

limitations and associations o the specic site. This does not mean that these works simply

ignore their place; on the contrary, when successul, architecture unveils the sense o place

and returns it to us as that which has always been given, as the git itsel. Only by acceptingthat this is our reality and acing it straight on will we be able to transcend its dangers.

Let me reiterate: there is obviously no creation ex nihilo. A phenomenological understan-

ding o meaning shows clearly that the world precedes us. In this sense the artist reveals the

unnameable through the poetic image, the invisible and concealed deep reality o our human

world. But or us moderns this reality is only apparent in the intentional realm: we make it.

The inveterate dualistic distinction between nature and culture is ambivalent. The structure

o ground, sky, and horizon to which the poet and architect must allude is always present

yet, in our modern world place can no longer by simply disclosed, it has to be reinvented. This

operation is rst gestural and linguistic, rather than simply a question o images.

Suggesting that we can recognize purely material qualities typological, topological, or

morphological at each one o the dierent scales addressed by the planner or architect, in

order to build a gural building or city, in a supposedly identiable place with its particular

genius loci, is a delusion.Dwellingin the early third millennium demands a reinvention o the

ground o architecture by identiying rst our renewed, non-Cartesian body image and its par-

ticular and necessarily ragmented recollection o Being. Through an introspective search, in

the orm o sel-knowledge through making, the architect can then expect to generate an order

appropriate to the task and site, without giving up the quest or guration. The search is a

personal one and, in this sense, is intimately related to the search o the painter, the writer, or

the musician, one always oriented by a historical sense, by the identication o a ounding tra-

dition. As in Rothkos dark canvases in Houston, the embodiment o the archetypal landscape

is today perhaps closer to the universal than say in the works o an 8th century painter, yet

remains uniquely concrete, immediately transormative, and equally impossible to paraphrase.

To conclude, let me return to the crucial role o language in all o this, the language o poe-

try, o course, as a language against the conventional connotative power o prose, capable o

expressing or us the true essence o a place, a city or a region, but also the language o stories,capable o articulating ways o lie, relationships, modes o engagement, and most important-

ly, ethical issues. These are the stories o the traditional dwellers, o the historical dwellers, and

o the uture dwellers, eventually taking the orm o the programs that architects and urban

designers put orward or new modes o collective participation in the city o the uture. This

latter use o language is part o the architectural and urban project, as important I would argue

as the drawings that may give it orm, one which has precedents in the early modern works o

Ledoux and Lequeu. This language is emphatically not algorithmic, it is not about unctions

but a vision o a poetic lie, or an idealized client, one that is thus related to its context. It

is the language o the humanities, and not one o hard science. It is deliberately a narrative

language, keeping in mind Merleau-Pontys observation that our xation with calculation and

universal language is a sure way to kill true language and human expression. The program or

the new city respectul o cultural identity is a promise, and must be one o beauty and justice,

terms that as Elaine Scarry has shown, point to the same value rather than being antithetical;

it is borne rom the architects responsible, personal imagination, through compassion or the

other, as a project or the common good.

alberto prez-gmez

alberto prez- gmez is saidye rosner bronfman professor of history and theory atmcgill university school of architecture in montreal. he is the author of several

reference works of architectural theory, such asarchitecture and the crisis of

modern science,architectural representation and the perspective hinge (with lou-

ise pelletier), and built upon love: architectural longing after ethics and aesthet-

ics. this lecture was delivered at the sverre fehn symposium at mamar in may 2006.

notes:. Martin Heidegger, The Age o th

The Question Concerning Technology

Garland Publishing, 977), 36.

The coopers house, seen rom the directors villa. La

Saline Royale DArc-et-Senans, 774-779. Claude-Ni-

colas Ledoux (736-806). From Michel Gallet: Ledoux,

Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt 983.

The Barcelona pavilion (929) with statue by Georg

Kolbe. Reconstruction rom 986. Mies van der Rohe.

From Sol-Morales, Cirici, Ramos: Mies van der Rohe

Barcelona Pavilion. Editorial Gustavo Gili, 993.

Far let: The Rothko chapel, Houston

with paintings by Mark Rothko. Arch

collaborated with Philip Johnson on t

Barnstone and Eugene Aubry comple

in 97.

Let: The Rothko Chapel, exterior with

Newmans sculpture The Broken Obphoto:hickey-robertson.the rothko chapel,housto

the city is not a postcard -perezgomez

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